JOSEPH  PELS 
HIS  LIFE-WORK 


JOSEPH  PELS 

HIS   LIFE-WORK 


MARY  PELS 


NEW  YORK 
B.  W.    HUEBSCH 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
B.  W.  HUEBSCH 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFOI 
SANTA  BARBARA 


JOSEPH  FELS 

Engine  and  wheel  and  chain  that  clank  and  groan 
In  ceaseless  factory-din  thundering  apace, 
Ear-stunning  clamor  of  the  market-place, 

And  yet,  amid  it  all,  he  heard  the  moan. 

When  Riches  made  its  golden  bribe  his  own, 

And  Power  trumpet-called  him  from  the  throng, 
And  soft,  luxurious  Ease,  with  drowsy  song, 

He  was  as  one  not  hearing  —  save  the  moan. 

Half  the  vast  world  he  traversed  in  his  quests, 
As  Galahad  for  the  Grail,  heedless  of  self, 
Unresting,  squandering  time  and  strength  and 
pelf, 

Followed  and  sought  and  fought  —  and  now  he  rests. 

; — FBANK  STEPHENS. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  THE  MAKING  or  A  BUSINESS  MAN    .      .  1 

II  SOCIAL  AND  PERSONAL  LIFE  .      .      .      .  14 

III  THE  SITUATION  IN  ENGLAND       ...  25 

IV  FARM  COLONIES:     LAINDON        ...  38 

V       HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAYLAND    ...        50 

VI  WHY  SMALL  HOLDINGS  FAIL       ...     65 

VII  POLITICAL  INTERESTS 78 

VIII  HOME  COLONIZATION 90 

IX  THE  METHODS  or  MONOPOLY     .      .      .   104 

X  THE  SINGLE  TAX 118 

XI  THE  CONTEST  WITH  THE  LEISURED  CLASS  142 

XII  PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA 156 

XIII  THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION     .      .      ..    183 
XIV  EDUCATIONAL   EXPERIMENTS  AND    SUF- 
FRAGE     199 

XV  LATER  ACTIVITIES 217 

XVI  PERSONAL  .   252 


JOSEPH  PELS 
HIS  LIFE-WORK 

I 

The  Making  of  a  Business  Man 

THE  parents  of  Joseph  Fels  were  German 
Jews  who  emigrated  to  America  in  the 
troublous  days  of  1848.  The  father  had  not 
been  concerned  with  the  revolution  of  that 
year,  but  he  was  uprooted  by  the  conditions  of 
the  time,  and  felt  urged  to  remove  his  family 
from  the  disturbed  atmosphere;  the  future 
seemed  to  promise  more  in  the  new  world  than 
in  the  old. 

Lazarus  Fels,  the  father,  was  an  energetic 
man  of  good  judgment  and  a  fair  measure  of 
business  ability.  Although  alert,  he  did  not 
possess  the  rapid  foresight  which  later  dis- 
tinguished his  son.  His  general  background 
of  ideas  was  that  of  the  time,  and  his  conserva- 
tive instincts  militated  against  any  habit  of 
examining  fundamental  beliefs,  which  was  to 


2          JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

be  the  quality  most  characteristic  of  bis  son. 
His  active  industry  commanded  the  respect  of 
his  .neighbors,  and  he  possessed  a  very  notice- 
able power  of  making  friends.  When  many 
years  later  a  son  visited  Yanceyville,  the  old 
clerk  of  the  court  remembered  Lazarus  Fels, 
and  spoke  of  him  in  terms  of  high  esteem. 

Susanna  Fels,  the  mother,  was  typical  of 
the  Jewish  woman  whose  domestic  genius  com- 
mended her  to  the  writer  of  Proverbs.  An 
admirably  efficient  housewife,  she  rendered 
her  husband  yeoman  service  in  the.  difficult 
days  of  their  early  sojourn  in  the  United 
States.  She  showed  a  quiet  courage  and  a 
determination  to  make  possible  her  husband's 
success  for  which  the  ordinary  words  of  praise 
are  inadequate.  For  it  must  be  remembered 
that  she  came  to  America  young,  with  three 
little  children,  a  stranger  in  language,  race 
and  religion.  Her  husband  was  forced  to 
leave  her  alone  in  Philadelphia  for  nearly  a 
year,  while  he  traveled  South  in  search  of  busi- 
ness. It  was  no  easy  burden  she  had  to  carry. 
More  than  forty  years  after  her  death  there  still 
remains  with  her  children  the  vivid  recollec- 


THE  MAKING  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN        3 

tion  of  her  gentleness,  her  refinement,  and  her 
quiet,  yet  resolute  determination.  Joseph 
Fels  used  to  say  in  after  years  that  it  was 
through  women  such  as  his  mother  that  the 
Jewish  race  had  been  able  to  endure. 

After  the  first  year  in  America,  the 
family  settled  in  Halifax  County,  Virginia, 
and  it  was  there,  five  years  after  their  de- 
parture from  Germany,  that  Joseph  was  born. 
He  was  the  fifth-born  and  fourth-surviving 
child.  While  he  was  still  an  infant,  the  family 
moved  to  Yanceyville,  North  Carolina,  where 
they  remained  until  Joseph  was  twelve.  Liv- 
ing in  a  German  Jewish  family  the  boy  still 
found  most  of  his  associates  among  Gentiles. 
A  large  part  of  the  population  was  colored 
and  Joseph  always  retained  a  tender  place  in 
his  heart  for  the  Negro  race.  These  varied 
human  elements  in  the  North  Carolina  village 
where  the  boy  lived  during  his  impressionable 
years  must  have  helped  to  shape  that  cosmo- 
politanism which  was  so  marked  a  character- 
istic of  the  man  in  later  years. 

In  Yanceyville  and  later  in  Richmond  and 
Baltimore,  Joseph  went  to  school,  but  it  may 


4          JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

be  said  that  the  boy  profited  little  from  his 
schooling.  He  was  a  mischievous  boy  and 
there  are  tales  of  frequent  conflicts  with  peda- 
gogical authority;  tales,  too,  that  he  did  not 
suffer  without  retort  the  weight  of  pedagogi- 
cal disapproval.  We  hear  of  his  readiness  to 
stand  up  for  his  rights,  of  his  determination 
that  neither  boy  nor  teacher  should  do  him 
injustice. 

Even  in  these  early  days  he  seems  to  have 
been  endowed  with  an  acute  business  sense. 
At  fourteen  he  had  established  with  the  aid  of 
a  younger  brother  a  cellar  in  which  a  kite  busi- 
ness flourished.  Joseph  was  the  managing 
director  and  seems  to  have  displayed  consider- 
able ability  in  securing  profitable  trade.  His 
stock  was  always  ready  at  the  right  season  and 
repairs  were  efficiently  carried  out.  That 
small  business  was  already  a  foretaste  of  his 
commercial  tendency. 

By  fifteen,  Joseph  was  thoroughly  tired 
of  school.  He  rebelled  against  the  constant 
discipline  and  the  monotonous  routine.  Like 
so  many  Jews,  at  fifteen  he  was  already  a  man. 
He  felt  the  need  of  more  intimate  contact  with 


THE  MAKING  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN        5 

life,  and  desired  urgently  the  realization  of  its 
color  and  its  excitement. 

In  1866,  the  family  moved  to  Baltimore 
where  Joseph  continued  in  school  until  he  was 
fifteen,  when  he  was  allowed  to  leave  and  enter 
his  father's  business.  The  latter  was  then  en- 
gaged in  the  manufacture  of  toilet-soap,  and 
doubtless  a  boy  so  energetic  and  masterful  as 
Joe  was  of  no  small  service  to  him.  At  the 
end  of  the  first  year  he  had  found  that  there 
was  not  enough  for  him  to  do.  The  business 
was  measurably  prosperous  and  maintained  the 
family  in  comfort;  but  in  1870  through  causes 
for  which  he  was  not  responsible  the  father  lost 
the  business  and  found  it  necessary  to  make  a 
new  beginning. 

It  was  a  serious  misfortune,  but  new  plans 
were  soon  on  foot.  Joseph  entered  the  em- 
ployment of  a  commission  agency  in  coffees 
and  was  fairly  successful.  Within  a  year  he 
and  his  father  had  accepted  a  position  as  repre- 
sentatives in  Baltimore  of  a  Philadelphia  soap 
house  and  a  definite  district  was  assigned  to 
them  for  their  business  operations.  The  con- 
nection lasted  a  few  years  and  provided  them  a 


6          JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

fair  living.  But  its  prospects  were  too  limited, 
and  in  1873  father  and  son  felt  justified  in 
moving  to  Philadelphia  where  they  took  out 
a  commission  with  a  larger  house  under  more 
favorable  terms. 

Still,  work  such  as  this  required  some  sub- 
ordination, and  to  a  nature  like  that  of  Joseph 
Fels  nothing  was  more  galling  than  a  sense  of 
restraint  or  authority.  From  the  very  begin- 
ning it  was  his  ambition  to  be  master  of  his 
own  career.  Consequently  in  the  autumn  of 
1875  he  went  into  partnership  with  a  Phila- 
delphia manufacturer.  The  business  was 
small  although  it  had  long  been  established, 
but  he  felt  that  he  could  work  better  as  master 
than  as  agent.  By  the  end  of  1876  he  was 
in  a  position  to  buy  out  the  partner  and  take 
over  the  business.  In  view  of  the  dimensions 
of  his  fortune  later,  it  is  interesting  that  the 
purchase  price  was  four  thousand  dollars,  and 
that  this  check  was  the  largest  he  had  ever 
drawn. 

So  was  established  Fels  and  Company,  and 
now  that  he  was  master  of  his  own  actions  he 
threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  work. 


THE  MAKING  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN        7 

His  one  idea  and  his  one  hope  was  to  make 
it  a  success  and  it  was  rarely  indeed  in  these 
years  that  he  allowed  his  mind  to  deviate  from 
this  single  endeavor.  He  traveled  everywhere 
in  its  interest,  his  easy,  confident  manner,  and 
his  incejssant  good  humor  making  him  an  ex- 
cellent salesman.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  in  the 
fifteen  years  from  1875  the  business  was  never 
out  of  his  mind.  At  home  and  in  his  office, 
day  and  night,  he  schemed  and  planned  and 
organized.  The  business,  despite  keen  and 
able  competition,  prospered  continuously  and 
from  the  year  of  its  establishment  never 
showed  any  decline. 

About  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the 
new  firm  of  Fels  &  Co.  his  brother  Samuel 
entered  the  business  and  in  1881  was  made  a 
partner.  But  by  1890  it  seemed  to  them  that 
so  keen  a  competition  asked  too  much.  It  was 
not  only  that  in  the  manufacture  of  toilet  soap 
the  competition  is  incessant;  the  salesman 
has  also  to  study  every  shift  and  current  of 
populai  whim.  He  must  have  many  varieties 
in  quality,  color,  perfume;  he  must  choose 
pleasing  wrappers,  the  right  boxes,  the  right 


8  JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

advertisements.  His  goods  must  not  become 
stereotyped,  while  at  the  same  time  they  must 
always  retain  a  sufficient  identity  to  be  borne 
in  mind.  It  will  be  clear  how  great  a  strain 
all  this  imposes  on  the  manufacturer.  The 
fear  of  waste  is  continually  before  his  eyes ;  he 
knows  that  a  new  variety  may  be  unsuccessful, 
that  the  wrapper  may  be  wrong,  the  box  in- 
sufficiently attractive,  the  price  too  high  or 
too  low.  He  must  also  be  able  to  convince 
the  middle  man  that  he  and  he  only  has  the 
varieties  that  the  former  requires.  In  no  other 
field  of  industry,  in  fact,  is  the  margin  on  the 
market  so  narrow  and  insecure.  The  young 
manufacturer  had  been  long  aware  of  these 
difficulties  and  had  perceived  the  wisdom  of 
specializing,  if  possible,  on  some  one  variety 
that  would  render  unnecessary  the  constant  at- 
tention to  such  a  multitude  of  petty  details. 
It  was  in  this  search  that  he  came  across 
the  soap  that  is  associated  with  the  name  of 
Fels.  A  Philadelphia  company  had  for  some 
time  been  applying  the  naphtha  process  to  a 
laundry  soap ;  but  the  business  was  badly  man- 
aged, both  on  the  side  of  manufacturing  and 


THE  MAKING  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN        9 

in  salesmanship,  and  serious  losses  had  been 
incurred.  A  study  of  the  problem  convinced 
the  firm  that  the  process  was  an  excellent  one 
and  that  it  needed  only  patience  and  ability  to 
make  it  a  commercial  success.  Once  so  con- 
vinced, they  did  not  hesitate.  In  1893,  they 
bought  an  interest  in  the  company  and  a  year 
later  bought  out  the  old  directors  completely, 
amalgamating  the  business  with  Fels  and  Com- 
pany. Meantime  his  brother  Maurice,  al- 
though pursuing  independent  interests,  was 
closely  connected  with  the  business. 

At  first  the  manufacture  of  the  new  soap 
was  carried  on  coincidently  with  that  of  toilet 
soap.  It  naturally  took  some  time  for  the 
"Fels  Naptha"  to  become  known  and  still 
longer  for  it  to  become  established.  But  in 
two  or  three  years,  the  success  of  the  new  ex- 
periment was  certain.  It  had  come  to  stay. 
So  large  was  the  demand  for  the  new  product 
that  the  partners  felt  justified  in  discontinuing 
the  manufacture  of  toilet  soaps,  and  in  con- 
centrating the  entire  attention  of  the  firm  on 
the  new  article.  A  large  manufacturing  plant 
grew  up  in  Philadelphia,  admirably  equipped 


10         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

and  organized.  From  this  time  Joseph  Fels' 
financial  success  was  assured. 

So  told,  the  story  seems  simple  enough. 
Tireless  effort  and  a  wise  patience  allied  to 
ability  proved  successful  as  always.  He  seized 
existing  opportunities  and  made  new  ones. 
He  was  compelled  in  the  early  stages  of  his 
business  career  to  rely  upon  himself;  he  had 
also  to  make  others  rely  upon  him,  and  his 
confidence  brought  him  through  to  remarkable 
success.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  when  the 
occasion  demanded,  he  could  hold  his  own  in 
the  most  hard  driven  bargain,  he  was  able  to 
humanize  all  his  business  relations. 

No  one  who  would  understand  the  life  of 
Joseph  Fels  can  afford  to  neglect  what  he 
gained  from  his  experience  in  business.  His 
shrewd  practicality  was  everywhere  evident 
in  what  he  later  undertook  in  political  affairs. 
He  was  anxious  to  prevent  misdirected  energy. 
He  was  angered  at  the  waste  of  things,  acutely 
conscious  that  this  more  than  anything  else 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  human  misery.  He  was 
always  talking  of  the  things  lying  idle  that 
might  be  used;  this  was  the  keynote  of  his 


THE  MAKING  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN      11 

public  activity.  He  believed  that  exactly  the 
same  kind  of  talent  which  was  applied  to  the 
direction  of  private  enterprise  could  be  suc- 
cessfully applied  to  the  conduct  of  national 
business. 

He  knew  that  the  success  of  a  great  busi- 
ness depends  upon  making  it  appeal  to  the  im- 
agination of  the  crowd.  That  was  how  Fels 
Naptha  had  built  up  its  own  fortune;  an  elo- 
quent claim  had  been  skilfully  and  pictur- 
esquely made  for  it.  People  had  been  inter- 
ested in  the  claim ;  they  had  bought  it  and  been 
satisfied  in  the  testing.  Not  otherwise  did  he 
conceive  that  great  political  movements  should 
be  engineered.  He  wanted  to  capture  the 
popular  imagination.  "All  great  move- 
ments," he  would  have  said  with  Disraeli, 
"spring  from  the  passions."  It  is  the  stimu- 
lated prejudice,  a  judgment  before  thought, 
that  sets  the  minds  of  men  to  work  in  common. 
This  point  of  view  is  equally  valuable  to  a  man 
who  wishes  to  sell  a  commodity  and  to  a  re- 
former who  wishes  to  change  social  conditions. 

Joseph  Fels'  instincts  were  all  profoundly 
democratic,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  his 


12         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

constant  association  with  working  people, 
through  his  factory  and  through  his  business 
relations,  served  to  strengthen  and  perfect  his 
belief  in  human  equality.  With  his  own  work- 
ing people,  he  lived  on  the  frankest  terms  of 
good  fellowship.  Their  lives  were  their  own 
and  he  always  looked  with  suspicion  upon  at- 
tempts to  regulate  the  social  life  of  working 
people.  It  was  his  duty  and  it  was  also,  as  he 
frequently  explained,  to  his  advantage,  to  pro- 
vide for  their  physical  comfort  and  to  pay 
them  the  best  wage  the  business  could  afford. 
He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  policy  of  drive ; 
he  did  not  believe  in  making  the  worker  the 
accessory  of  the  machine.  He  treated  him  as 
an  equal,  but  insisted  upon  his  responsibility, 
and  he  won  his  reward.  His  men  felt  it  was 
worth  while  to  work  for  a  firm  which  was  no 
corporate  fiction  but  a  living  group  of  men 
with  regard  for  the  bodies  and  souls  of  those 
with  whom  they  came  in  contact. 

Such  is  the  way  in  which  Joseph  Fels  made 
himself  a  successful  business  man.  But  in 
achieving  financial  success  he  also  shaped  his 
own  life  to  larger  issues.  Courage  brought 


THE  MAKING  OF  A  BUSINESS  MAN      13 

success  and  success  brought  more  courage. 
The  mastery  of  petty  difficulties  strengthened 
an  optimism  which  always  expected  the  best. 
An  open  mind  and  daily  association  with  men 
enabled  him  to  see  the  evils  of  our  present 
social  organization.  The  constant  attempt  to 
make  men  live  to  their  best  as  employees  or 
business  associates  showed  him  how  to  use  sug- 
gestion and  how  to  develop  leadership.  The 
facing  of  new  problems  as  they  arose  in  the 
building  of  a  great  business  trained  him  in 
foresight  and  gave  him  confidence  in  his  ability 
to  judge  plans  not  yet  tried.  But,  meantime, 
Joseph  Fels,  the  business  man,  was  also  being 
shaped  by  varied  personal  experiences. 


II 

Social  and  Personal  Life 

fTlHE  life  of  Joseph  Fels  as  a  boy  was 
•^  largely  confined  to  the  well-regulated 
activities  of  a  conservative  Jewish  family,  tem- 
pered by  the  influences  characteristic  of  a  small 
southern  town  of  blacks  and  whites  during  the 
Civil  War  and  the  period  of  reconstruction. 
Yanceyville  lay  aside  from  the  track  of  the 
war  and  consequently  the  events  which  devas- 
tated the  South  and  strained  the  resources  of 
the  North  to  the  breaking  point,  did  not 
directly  affect  the  fortunes  of  the  Fels  family. 
From  the  age  of  fifteen,  the  life  of  Joseph,  as 
already  described,  was  increasingly  absorbed 
in  business. 

The  year  that  he  was  twenty  an  event  oc- 
curred which  was  destined  to  have  profound 
influence  on  all  his  after  life.  He  fell  in  love 
with  a  girl  who  was  still  a  child,  and  vowed 

himself  to  her  service,  a  vow  which  held  with 

u 


SOCIAL  AND  PERSONAL  LIFE          15 

growing  power  for  the  forty  succeeding  years 
of  his  life.  To  understand  this  event  one  must 
realize  the  essential  romanticism  of  the  man. 
With  all  his  intense  practicality  his  nature  was 
that  of  a  dreamer.  His  imagination  always 
anticipated  events.  His  intuitions  quickly  be- 
came convictions  and  he  stood  ready  to  gamble 
all  he  had  on  their  validity.  He  could  never 
endure  the  oppression  of  suspended  judgment 
but  decided  at  once  and  backed  his  decision 
with  action. 

One  day  in  the  year  1873,  Joseph  Fels  then 
at  the  age  of  twenty,  while  pursuing  his  work 
as  traveling  salesman,  found  himself  in  the 
little  town  of  Keokuk,  Iowa.  During  casual 
conversation  with  one  of  his  customers,  men- 
tion was  made  of  the  fact  that  there  was  in 
the  same  town  another  family  of  the  name  of 
Fels.  As  Joseph  had  thought  that  he  had  no 
relatives  in  America  beyond  his  immediate 
family,  the  circumstance  struck  him  as  so  un- 
usual that  he  felt  interested  to  seek  them  out 
and  make  their  acquaintance.  This  acquain- 
tanceship was  renewed  on  each  succeeding 
visit  to  the  town. 


16        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Upon  his  approach  to  the  house  at  his  very 
first  call,  his  attention  was  attracted  by  a  little 
girl  of  nine  standing  in  the  doorway,  who  con- 
fidently ushered  this  stranger  into  the  home  of 
her  parents. 

Mr.  Fels  loved  in  after  years  to  tell  how  at 
that  moment  he  felt  this  child  was  destined 
for  him  and  that  no  sacrifice  would  be  too  great 
to  win  her  and  make  her  his  wife.  This  resolve 
grew  into  a  devotion  which  continued  unabated 
for  the  next  nine  years. 

In  his  attitude  as  elder  brother  and  in  his 
solicitude  to  assist  in  her  development,  there 
lay  a  dormant  romanticism  which  ripened  into 
a  love  and  companionship  of  rare  tenderness 
and  mutual  inspiration.  They  were  married 
in  the  year  1881. 

In  July  of  1884  a  son  was  born  to  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Fels,  but  in  December  of  the  same  year 
the  baby  fell  ill  and  died.  It  was  naturally  a 
serious  blow  as  Mr.  Fels  had  a  passion  for 
children,  but  this  misfortune  was  a  significant 
turning  point  in  the  lives  of  both.  To  fill  the 
gap  caused  by  the  loss  of  the  child,  Mrs.  Fels 
occupied  herself  with  social  activities  and  in- 


SOCIAL  AND  PERSONAL  LIFE          17 

tellectual  pursuits.  In  this  way  the  home 
which  had  hitherto  been  consecrated  to  do- 
mestic ideals  and  business  interests  became  a 
center  of  intelligence  and  progressive  ideas. 
In  this  atmosphere  of  critical  discussion,  Mr. 
Fels'  inherent  radicalism  began  to  take  more 
definite  shape.  The  hospitable  home  attracted 
artists,  business  men,  dreamers,  poets,  social- 
ists and  reformers  of  every  kind.  Many  of 
these  found  in  Mr.  Fels  quick  understanding 
and  generous  sympathy.  From  them  he  came 
in  turn  to  feel  the  irresistible  charm  of  think- 
ing new  thoughts,  dreaming  new  dreams  and 
working  toward  their  realization. 

It  is  difficult  to  trace  with  any  exactness 
Mr.  Fels'  social  ideas  in  these  years.  It  was 
a  period  in  which  he  was  content  to  mitigate 
rather  than  to  construct.  He  helped  people 
constantly.  There  seemed  in  him  a  generous 
emotion  of  philanthropy — in  the  original 
sense  of  that  word.  He  gave  freely  even  when 
his  own  income  was  small  and  needed  in  the 
business ;  and  even  while,  underneath  the  satis- 
faction he  felt  in  affording  relief,  there  was 
an  unshaped  but  imperative  desire  to  destroy 


18         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

the  need  for  giving.  His  mind  was  like  an 
intricate  mass  of  loose  threads  that  needed  a 
plan  to  weave  them  into  a  definite  design. 
This  plan  had  its  beginning  in  his  extreme  in- 
dividualism, his  desire  that  each  man  should 
stand  on  his  own  feet  and  make  the  most  of 
his  manhood.  The  business  travels  were  to 
him  a  kind  of  education.  Men  were  always 
his  books;  and  on  the  road  he  met  variety 
enough  even  for  so  persistent  an  enquirer.  He 
is  all  the  time  probing  his  fellow  travelers  on 
social  problems.  He  adopts  little  in  these 
years  but  there  are  few  men  so  alert  to  ex- 
amine. 

The  conservative  temperament  was  entirely 
alien  to  Mr.  Fels  in  young  manhood  as  in  later 
years.  There  was  little  in  the  social  order  that 
commanded  his  reverence.  Those  who  spoke 
of  tradition  and  the  ancient  ways  made  no  ap- 
peal to  him.  The  men  who  awakened  his  in- 
terest were  those  who  seemed  to  herald  a 
change.  It  was  not  that  he  had  any  special 
point  of  contact  with  their  social  philosophy. 
He  had  simply  a  general  sympathy  with  their 
vague  flavor  of  modernity.  "They  were  try- 


SOCIAL  AND  PERSONAL  LIFE  19 

ing,"  as  he  once  said,  "to  understand  them- 
selves, without  any  of  the  damned  nonsense  of 
trying  to  understand  their  grandfathers." 

Mr.  Pels  had  never  been  strongly  drawn 
to  the  service  of  the  synagogue.  He  respected 
it  as  a  conservator  of  a  magnificent  tradition 
but  it  seemed  to  him  a  force  for  the  main- 
tenance of  dogma.  What  he  wanted,  and 
what  his  nature  needed,  was  a  religion  of 
humanity,  one  that  stood  apart  from  race  and 
class,  from  creed  and  time,  and  asserted  the 
brotherhood  of  man.  For  a  time  he  was  a' 
member  of  the  Ethical  Society  but  his  religion 
was  not  a  matter  of  institutions,  and  through- 
out life  his  friends  were  chosen  regardless  of 
creed  or  race.  He  was  a  man,  and  in  every 
other  man  he  saw  a  brother. 

By  1895  Mr.  Eels'  business  career  had 
achieved  a  solution  of  its  most  pressing  prob- 
lems and  had  opened  the  road  to  undoubted 
success.  The  varied  associations  of  road  and 
home,  the  close  contact  with  men  and  sharp 
clash  with  their  opinions  had  accomplished  the 
work  of  shaping  and  maturing  his  character. 
That  year  may  therefore  be  regarded  as  the 


20         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

point  at  which  the  formative  elements  in  his 
life  gathered  themselves  into  an  instrumen- 
tality which  could  be  consciously  used  towards 
the  constructive  work  of  the  world.  This  new 
period  quickly  asserted  itself  in  a  definite 
product. 

One  of  the  circumstances  most  commonly 
attendant  upon  the  private  exploitation  of 
land  values  is  the  existence  in  every  town  and 
city  of  vacant  spaces  not  intended  for  use, 
but  held  in  anticipation  of  increased  prices. 
These  plots,  usually  acquired  with  old  build- 
ings, show  in  most  cases  the  results  of  house 
wrecking  activities,  and  the  public  often  tol- 
erates an  unsightly  rubbish  heap  or  unspeak- 
able hoardings  on  main  thoroughfares,  and 
side  by  side  with  the  best  results  of  public  im- 
provement. Though  economically  and  aes- 
thetically undesirable,  the  speculator  may  hold 
them  as  long  as  he  likes,  safely  protected  by 
the  rule  that  private  property  is  inviolable. 
It  is  many  years  since  Governor  Pingree  of 
Michigan,  seeing  the  multitude  of  unsightly 
vacant  spaces  in  the  city  of  Detroit  originated 
the  plan  of  securing  their  temporary  use  for 


SOCIAL  AND  PERSONAL  LIFE  SI 

gardening  purposes.  The  potatoes  produced 
by  the  poor  of  Detroit  on  vacant  building  lands 
became  famous,  and  Mr.  Fels  was  struck  by 
the  applicability  of  the  plan  to  his  own  city 
of  Philadelphia. 

The  undertaking  began  in  the  most  modest 
way  with  a  meeting  of  a  few  business  men  and 
social  workers  in  the  city,  an  exposition  of  a 
plan,  and  a  committee  to  start  the  experiment. 
A  few  land  owners  were  found  willing  to  lend 
their  sites  to  be  cultivated  by  working  men 
with  a  taste  for  gardening.  The  plan  was  ad- 
vertised; and  applicants  from  the  first  were 
more  numerous  than  was  anticipated.  Once 
started,  this  society  has  never  looked  back  and 
has  grown  steadily  in  strength  and  usefulness. 
Mr.  Samuel  Fels  became  president  in  1907. 
Chicago,  Cleveland,  and  New  York  established 
similar  organizations  for  the  cultivation  of 
vacant  lots. 

Even  in  its  tenth  year,  with  an  income  of 
only  thirteen  hundred  dollars,  the  Philadelphia 
society  was  able  to^provide  gardens  for  eight 
hundred  families,  representing  approximately 
four  thousand  men,  women  and  children  who 


22        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

produced  vegetables  to  the  value  of  $10,400. 
That  is  to  say,  every  dollar  subscribed  pro- 
duced an  eight-fold  return  in  foodstuffs. 
Many  of  the  workers  employed  on  these  va- 
cant lots  were  able,  after  providing  themselves 
and  their  families  with  vegetables  for  their 
own  consumption,  to  sell  the  surplus  and  thus 
earn  a  little  ready  money.  Work  was  found 
for  the  unemployed  in  preparing  land  for  al- 
lotment holders;  and  later  many  of  the  un- 
employed themselves  took  up  allotments.  As 
soon  as  the  funds  of  the  society  permitted,  the 
workers  were  instructed  and  guided  by  an  ex- 
perienced superintendent. 

These  results,  it  must  be  remembered,  were 
obtained  not  from  rich  soil,  but  from  old,  un- 
used building  sites  locally  regarded  as  eye- 
sores and  dumping  grounds.  The  workers, 
too,  were  for  the  most  part  people  without 
previous  agricultural  or  gardening  knowledge, 
who  were  recruited  at  random  from  the  work- 
ing class  population  of  Philadelphia.  To  the 
material  benefit  which  the  cultivation  of  these 
vacant  lots  brought  to  the  people  who  worked 
them,  must  be  added  the  blessing  of  improved 


SOCIAL  AND  PERSONAL  LIFE  23 

health,  together  with  restored  manhood  and 
new  possibilities  of  life.  "How  many  men," 
Mr.  Fels  once  said  in  a  meeting  of  the  society, 
''have  we  lost  simply  through  lack  of  the 
medicine  nature  prescribes,  fresh  air  and 
vigorous  exercise?"  The  educational  value  of 
this  work  was  seen  in  the  establishment  of 
school  gardens,  which,  with  Mr.  Fels'  eager 
encouragement,  were  early  made  a  feature  of 
the  scheme. 

This  experiment  meant  much  in  Mr.  Pels' 
life.  It  gave  point  and  direction  to  certain 
ideas  which  had  for  some  years  been  upper- 
most in  his  mind.  He  had  always  been  im- 
pressed by  the  possibilities  inherent  in  the 
cultivation  of  the  land.  He  had  before  this 
helped  men,  broken  by  the  struggle  of  life  in 
the  city,  to  establish  themselves  as  farmers. 
The  experiment  with  the  city  lots  had  shown 
that  there  was  a  real  hunger  for  the  land ;  the 
society  from  the  start  had  always  more  ap- 
plicants than  it  could  supply.  Meantime 
there  was  no  dearth  of  land.  There  was  no 
scarcity  even  of  unused  land.  There  was 
almost  a  plethora  of  land  deliberately  with- 


24        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

held  from  cultivation  or  from  other  improve- 
ments, merely  for  purposes  of  speculation. 
At  that  time  only  the  problem  existed  for  him. 
He  had  probably  no  kind  of  solution  to  sug- 
gest for  it;  but  the  experience  must  undoubt- 
edly have  exercised  no  small  influence  on  his 
mind. 


Ill 

The  Situation  in  England 

TN  1901  it  became  desirable  for  Mr.  Fels  to 
-••  go  to  England  to  work  up  a  distributing 
branch  of  the  business  in  that  country.  Eng- 
land— the  fact  is  from  another  standpoint 
significant — was  a  free  trade  country  and  it 
was  thus  possible  to  compete  there  on  equal 
terms  with  domestic  productions.  For  two  or 
three  years  after  his  arrival  in  England  Mr. 
Fels,  with  his  close  co-worker,  Walter  Coates, 
devoted  his  energies  to  the  establishment  of 
this  branch  of  the  business.  Owing  to  the 
keenest  competition  and  the  general  difficulty 
of  securing  custom,  this  work  was  for  a  time 
very  arduous  and  required  close  and  exclusive 
attention.  In  the  course  of  a  few  years,  how- 
ever, the  business  became  plainer  sailing  and 
Mr.  Fels  gradually  relinquished  the  direction 
to  Mr.  Coates.  During  the  last  ten  years  of 

25 


26        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

his  life  he  gave  only  very  occasional  super- 
vision to  the  conduct  of  business  affairs. 

Constituted  as  he  was  with  ready  sympathy 
for  the  oppressed  and  needy,  combined  with 
completely  democratic  conceptions,  he  was  in- 
evitably drawn  into  participation  in  social 
affairs  and  the  kind  of  work  that  is  generally 
described  as  social  reform. 

To  understand  clearly  the  direction  of  his 
interest  and  activities,  it  is  necessary  to  review 
briefly  the  chief  features  of  the  situation  in 
England  during  the  opening  years  of  the  cen- 
tury. The  conclusion  of  the  Boer  War  left 
the  British  public  with  some  serious  practical 
problems  and  many  kinds  of  discontent.  The 
national  conscience  was  already  beginning  to 
react  after  its  somewhat  extreme  commitment 
to  ideals  of  imperialistic  enterprise.  The  war 
and  the  years  immediately  following  disclosed 
to  England  many  ugly  conditions  within  her. 
She  began  to  feel  it  necessary  to  be  for  a  time, 
at  any  rate,  a  "little  England"  and  put  in  order 
some  of  the  pressing  affairs  of  her  own  house- 
hold. With  the  trade  depression  that  imme- 
diately supervened,  the  problem  of  unemploy- 


THE  SITUATION  IN  ENGLAND         27 

merit,  acute  from  the  time  when  the  armies 
returned  from  South  Africa,  began  to  assume 
portentous  dimensions.  From  1905  to  1908, 
the  country  was  faced  with  a  condition  in  its 
labor  market  that  was  truly  appalling.  Ad- 
ministrators seemed  to  have  a  dearth  of  means, 
and  a  greater  dearth  of  ideas  for  dealing  with 
the  situation.  Local  resources  were  wholly 
inadequate,  whether  for  relief  or  the  provision 
of  temporary  relief  works. 

It  appeared  as  if  the  country  could  not  ex- 
pand its  trade  to  the  point  of  absorbing  the 
enormous  labor  surplus,  or  shoulder  the  ter- 
rible burden  that  began  to  fall  upon  its  ma- 
chinery of  relief.  Bands  of  the  hungry  were 
for  a  time  almost  daily  upon  the  streets  de- 
manding work.  The  nation  was,  in  short,  hav- 
ing to  pay  the  penalty  of  industrial  efficiency, 
the  possession  of  millions  of  factory-trained 
and  habituated  workmen,  kept  always  suffi- 
ciently numerous  to  ensure  low  wages  in  the 
best  of  times,  and  doomed,  with  the  cyclical 
recurrence  of  depression,  to  unemployment 
and  privation. 

Added  to  this  state  of  affairs,  was  the  more 


28         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

than  disquieting  realization  of  national  deter- 
ioration. The  small  percentage  of  recruits 
found  acceptable  for  service  abroad  came  as 
a  shock  to  those  who  had  previously  taken  for 
granted  the  superior  quality  of  the  nation's 
physique.  Overcrowded  and  unhealthy  urban 
districts  where  the  workers  have  their  homes, 
the  cramped  and  mechanical  nature  of  their 
occupations,  the  general  disregard  for  life  and 
health  accorded  the  wage-earning  population, 
had  been  found  to  have  reached  their  natural 
consequence  in  a  proletariat  rapidly  deteriorat- 
ing in  fitness  as  well  as  in  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence. Nothing  short  of  a  national  crisis 
ever  makes  the  Englishman  clearly  recognize 
a  defect  in  the  national  life,  but  it  came  home 
with  striking  force  in  the  years  following  the 
war.  Every  student  of  economic  and  social 
affairs,  every  reformer,  and  even  every  poli- 
tician found  his  attention  absorbed  by  these 
crying  questions  of  employment  and  health. 
On  the  whole  much  has  been  done  legislatively 
to  improve  the  sanitary  conditions  of  the 
worker.  With  increasingly  efficient  inspec- 
tion of  factory  and  of  home,  with  workmen's 


THE  SITUATION  IN  ENGLAND         29 

compensation,  and  latterly,  sickness  insurance, 
it  may  be  said  that  Britain  is  on  her  way  to 
establishing  for  the  laboring  population  a  set 
of  tolerable  conditions  of  life. 

For  the  problem  of  unemployment,  how- 
ever, little  has  been  achieved.  Old-age  pen- 
sions and  labor  exchanges  count  for  little  as 
against  the  burden  of  unemployment  which 
came  into  view  a  decade  ago,  and  which  will 
inevitably  recur  when  the  present  war  is  over. 
To  put  the  matter  briefly,  the  problem  of  the 
social  reformer  ten  years  ago  was  to  ameliorate 
the  condition  of  a  huge  population  of  industrial 
workers,  with  precarious  and  scanty  means  of 
subsistence,  and  rapidly  becoming  degenerate, 
through  the  evil  effects  of  factory  and  city 
slum. 

The  remedy  adopted  for  unemployment 
was  naturally  conditioned  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  time,  great  urgency  for  which  no  pre- 
vious foresight  had  provided,  the  hasty  en- 
deavor to  provide  public  works  which  would 
absorb  a  proportion  of  the  surplus  labor. 
Local  efforts  were  aided  by  grants  made  by 
the  government  and  administered  in  London 


30         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

by  the  Central  Unemployed  Body,  which  came 
into  existence  in  1904.  Certain  general  works 
were  carried  on  by  the  committee  and  vacan- 
cies allotted  to  the  different  boroughs.  In  ad- 
dition, a  rudimentary  kind  of  labor  exchange 
activity  was  initiated  to  meet  the  needs  of  such 
employers  as  happened  to  require  men.  These 
palliatives  effected  only  a  small  fraction  of  the 
relief  demanded.  An  important  principle, 
however,  was  established,  namely,  that  the 
Government  should,  in  times  of  trade  depres- 
sion, become  an  employer  for  the  purpose  of 
utilizing  the  labor  surplus;  a  principle  which 
has  received  application  in  the  Development 
Act.  The  general  establishment  of  labor  ex- 
changes operative  throughout  the  country,  to 
equalize  the  demand  upon  the  labor  market,  is 
the  further  administrative  contribution  to  the 
solution  of  the  problem. 

Knowledge  was  not  lacking,  during  this 
decade  in  which  unemployment  mounted  to 
the  highest  point  of  its  curve  and  gradually 
descended  to  its  normal,  of  the  one  great 
remedy  which  is  adequate  to  cure  the  greatest 
of  economic  illnesses.  Those  whose  prevision 


THE  SITUATION  IN  ENGLAND          31 

reaches  beyond  the  screen  of  great  temporary 
prosperity  have  been  well  aware  that  the  na- 
tional life  of  Britain,  as  of  other  countries,  can 
only  conserve  itself  by  an  agriculture  which 
grows  concomitantly  with,  and  balances  in- 
dustry. It  has  remained  for  Professor  Ash- 
ley, himself  one  of  the  greatest  of  commercial 
experts,  to  show  the  vital  necessity  of  this  re- 
lation, and  for  a  great  war  to  bring  home  the 
fact  that  it  is  a  serious  matter  for  a  great  na- 
tion to  neglect  the  tillage  of  the  soil. 

The  "back  to  the  land"  cry,  however,  has 
made  itself  heard  for  nearly  a  generation. 
Social  reformers  in  England  have  for  many 
years  contemplated  with  envy  the  rural  de- 
velopment of  Continental  countries,  the  con- 
servation of  a  strong  and  resourceful  peas- 
antry, the  evolution  of  intensive  culture  with 
skilful  and  scientific  methods  of  tillage,  the 
spectacle  of  nations  that  in  emergency  would 
be  self-supporting.  Increasing  alarm  has 
been  felt  that  the  population  of  England 
should  be  dragged  from  its  last  few  roots  in 
the  soil  and  placed  in  the  urban  and  industrial 
atmosphere  to  wither  and  decay.  The  small 


32        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

holders  of  Denmark,  Belgium  and  France  un- 
doubtedly constitute  an  element  of  national 
strength  that  is  lacking  in  England.  Great 
wealth  certainly  belongs  to  an  industrial  na- 
tion with  a  world's  trade,  but  is  a  doubtful  com- 
pensation for  the  drain  on  human  quality, 
when,  in  addition,  this  industrial  system  finds 
itself  with  a  normal  surplus  of  workers,  which 
at  recurring  intervals  increases  to  the  point  of 
being  an  alarming  problem. 

The  difficulty  was  to  find  means.  An  in- 
dustrial proletariat  has  seemingly  become  a 
part  of  the  order  of  things.  Consciously  or 
unconsciously,  the  employers  of  labor  always 
aid  that  conspiracy  of  circumstances  which  has 
made  Britain  urban  and  industrial.  High 
profits  naturally  derive  from  low  wages,  and 
the  scale  of  wages  is  determined  by  the  labor 
market.  With  a  surplus,  the  tendency  is  in- 
evitably to  that  low  limit  which  just  prevents 
starvation.  It  is  therefore  to  the  interest  of 
employers  to  depopulate  the  rural  districts  and 
herd  the  population  in  cities,  to  provide  man- 
ual training  for  children  and  technical  educa- 
tion for  youth,  to  make  it,  if  possible,  less  prof- 


THE  SITUATION  IN  ENGLAND         33 

itable  to  cultivate  the  soil,  and  in  addition, 
to  secure  possession  for  members  of  their  own 
class  of  large  sections  of  land  for  merely  resi- 
dential and  sporting  purposes.  Every  one 
knows  now  that  back  to  the  land  is  impossible 
in  England,  because  there  is  no  land  available 
for  use.  But  there  was  a  long  struggle  to 
open  the  gate  of  the  industrial  prison. 

The  Small  Holdings  Act  seemed  the  dawn 
of  a  new  day  for  the  people  of  England,  but 
the  light  glimmered  and  went  out  when  the 
attempt  was  made  to  apply  its  provisions. 
Even  confiscation  has  no  value  when  the  con- 
fiscator  is  the  person  whose  interest  it  is  to 
abstain.  The  Garden  City  movement  seemed 
to  promise  something,  but  whatever  its  benefits 
it  has  no  effect  upon  the  labor  market;  indeed 
this  market  is  brought  under  closer  control. 
The  key  to  the  whole  problem  is  simply  that 
the  laborer,  to  have  any  advantageous  position, 
must  in  the  last  resort  be  able  to  leave  in- 
dustry and  secure  a  living  by  the  pursuit  of 
agriculture.  It  is  as  a  great  alternative  oc- 
cupation that  agriculture  can  supplement  and 
balance  industry,  and  play  its  appropriate  role 


34        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

in  the  life  of  a  nation.  Allow  the  land  to  be 
available  for  use,  give  the  children  as  much 
instruction  in  natural  occupations  as  in  the 
crafts,  and  the  rights  of  workers  would  not  be 
long  in  establishing  themselves. 

Ten  years  ago,  however,  it  seemed  that  the 
Small  Holdings  Act  constituted  an  avenue  to 
rural  re-population,  and  the  problem  of  great- 
est difficulty  seemed  that  of  training  members 
of  a  city-bred  population  for  work  on  the  soil. 
The  best  method  seemed  to  be  the  establish- 
ment of  colonies,  which  would  serve  as  inter- 
mediate stations  between  town  and  country. 
The  experiments  of  Dr.  Paton  and  of  General 
Booth  had  made  the  idea  in  some  degree  fa- 
miliar. Their  underlying  intention  was  to 
provide  healthful  employment  through  which 
workers  could  earn  a  part  of  their  mainte- 
nance. The  purpose  was  philanthropic  and 
largely  in  the  interest  of  religion. 

Modifications  toward  betterment  in  the 
British  social  economy  are  proverbially  slow 
and  at  the  same  time  so  vague  that  their  general 
bearing  is  indeterminate  and  unconscious.  To 
clarify  its  meaning  is  to  harm  any  tendency 


THE  SITUATION  IN  ENGLAND         85 

because  notice  involves  a  disproportionate  de- 
gree of  suspicion  and  criticism,  and  con- 
sequent reaction.  In  England  to  label  is  to 
damn.  The  social  region  bounded  on  one  side 
by  the  fixed  doctrine  of  the  economics  of  em- 
ployment, supply  and  demand  in  the  labor 
market,  and  on  the  other,  by  the  equally  hard 
and  fast  principle  of  the  poor  law — this  region 
occupied  by  the  unemployed,  so  long  a  field 
barren  of  ideas  and  accessible  only  to  the 
sterile  seeds  of  charity — this  field  Joseph  Fels 
chose  for  his  labors.  Just  as  his  efforts 
changed  many  a  London  rubbish  heap  into  a 
garden  full  of  living  things  for  the  further 
support  of  life,  so  he  hoped  to  see  the  human 
rubbish  heap  flowering  and  producing. 

The  conditions  seemed  present  for  some 
successful  work  to  be  undertaken.  There  was 
the  idea  of  returning  to  the  land  as  an  outlet 
for  unemployed  labor,  and  the  idea  of  coloniz- 
ing as  the  means  of  providing  the  necessary 
training,  but  no  practical  movement  could  be 
got  under  way.  Authorities  both  national 
and  local  seemed  land-locked  either  by  conven- 
tion or  regulation,  and  charity  was  wholly  in- 


36        JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

adequate  to  deal  with  the  issue.  Some  sort  of 
impetus  was  necessary  and  this  was  supplied 
by  Mr.  Fels.  His  simple  practical  directness 
set  matters  moving.  If  it  was  a  good  thing  to 
put  the  unemployed  upon  the  land,  then  get 
land.  If  it  was  a  good  thing  to  train  in  col- 
onies for  agricultural  work,  then  form  colonies. 
If  it  was  a  labor  too  great  for  philanthropy  to 
accomplish  and  required  administration  by 
state  and  local  authorities,  then  proceed  to 
secure  such  administration.  If  some  one  was 
needed  to  take  the  initiative  in  all  these  mat- 
ters, he  was  quite  willing  to  offer  himself. 

It  was  clear  to  him  that  whatever  was  done 
should  not  be  a  matter  of  capricious  charity 
but  of  public  enterprise;  that  the  foundations 
should  be  laid  for  a  permanent  rather  than  a 
temporary  structure;  that  whatever  existing 
machinery  might  be  adapted  to  this  new  pur- 
pose should  be  utilized.  It  was  not  so  much  a 
lack  of  instrumentalities  as  the  limitations 
placed  upon  their  use  that  formed  the  chief 
obstacle.  The  administration  of  relief  was 
bound  to  a  narrow  course  by  the  principles 
and  regulations  of  the  Poor  Law.  The 


.THE  SITUATION  IN  ENGLAND         87 

Guardians  of  the  Poor  with  the  strict  inter- 
pretation of  their  duties  had  to  force  all  the 
needy  into  the  groove  of  utterly  destitute 
paupers,  that  is,  to  subject  them  to  workhouse 
treatment. 

The  idea  that  relief  could  be  administered 
in  a  way  which  might  lead  to  the  betterment 
of  those  relieved,  either  by  providing  healthful 
occupation  or  in  training  for  a  new  sphere  of 
activities  was  so  contrary  to  the  intention  of 
the  Poor  Law  that  no  Board  of  Guardians 
could  see  its  way  to  broaden  its  activities  by 
including  a  farm  colony.  Mr.  Fels  saw  that 
it  might  be  a  different  story  if  the  use  of  a 
farm  colony  were  offered  to  guardians  to  re- 
lieve the  congestion  in  the  workhouse,  or  the 
strain  upon  outdoor  relief.  It  was  at  this 
point  that  he  came  in  contact  with  Mr.  George 
Lansbury  and  formed  that  partnership  in 
social  and  political  work  which  has  left  its 
enduring  mark  upon  this  generation. 


IV 
Farm  Colonies:  Laindon 


cause  of  labor  in  its  struggle  toward 
political  expression  and  representation 
has  had  its  martyrs  and  heroes,  also  its  due 
proportion  of  the  stupid  and  time  serving. 
When  it  unexpectedly  found  its  strength  in 
1906,  with  a  relatively  imposing  representa- 
tion in  Parliament,  and  knew  that  henceforth 
it  was  a  power  in  politics  to  be  reckoned  with, 
it  faced  the  difficulty  of  reducing  into  a  meas- 
urable program  of  action  the  multitudinous 
discontents  of  the  labor  world,  and  somehow 
discovering  enough  agreement  to  present  a 
solid  front  to  political  opponents.  It  became 
as  every  one  knows  a  party  ;  its  representatives 
were  disciplined  to  the  orders  of  a  whip,  and 
the  expression  of  its  opinions  was  arranged  and 
officialized.  Among  those  who  made  this  pos- 
sible two  figures  stand  out,  Keir  Hardie  and 
George  Lansbury. 

As  the  chief  and  for  a  long  time  the  only 

38 


FARM  COLONIES:  LAINDON  89 

spokesman  for  labor  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, Mr.  Hardie  displayed  a  devotion  and  a 
courage  which  will  receive  a  greater  apprecia- 
tion in  the  future  than  even  his  colleagues  are 
able  at  present  to  accord.  Mr.  Lansbury  was 
not  until  recently  within  the  precincts  of  the 
House.  He  entered  politics  because  he  felt 
that  he  had  a  special  work  to  perform,  but  it 
is  doubtful  if  the  dull  fetters  of  membership 
gave  him  as  wide  or  useful  a  scope  as  he  had 
enjoyed  as  a  private  citizen  of  the  East  End 
of  London.  He  is  one  of  the  most  expert 
Poor  Law  administrators  in  the  country,  hav- 
ing served  a  long  period  on  the  Poplar  Board 
of  Guardians.  As  one  of  the  Commissioners 
on  the  reform  of  the  Poor  Law,  he  gave  his 
knowledge  and  experience  to  the  framing  of 
the  Minority  Report.  He  is  one  of  the  men, 
rare  enough  in  or  out  of  public  life,  who  may 
be  trusted  to  know  the  right  intuitively  and 
pursue  it  unflinchingly,  whatever  theoretical 
opinions  they  may  express  or  be  credited  with. 
When  party  loyalty  came  in  conflict  with  his 
convictions,  he  sacrificed  his  seat  to  his  prin- 
ciples. 


iO         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

With  such  a  man  then,  Mr.  Fels  became 
associated  and  the  connection  covered  an  un- 
interrupted period  of  eleven  years.  Mr. 
Lansbury,  as  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Guard- 
ians for  Poplar,  was  already  in  1904  endeavor- 
ing to  extend  the  scope  of  relief  in  a  way  to 
alter  materially  the  limitations  of  the  old  Poor 
Law.  Mr.  Fels  was  at  the  time  busy  with  the 
formation  of  his  Vacant  Lands  Cultivation 
Society.  During  his  first  visit  to  Mr.  Lans- 
bury at  his  home  in  Bow,  the  conversation 
turned  upon  the  utilization  of  land  as  a  mode 
of  solving  the  problem  of  unemployment. 
Mr.  Lansbury  was  impressed  by  the  business- 
like energy  of  his  new  friend  and  the  desire 
to  do  rather  than  to  talk.  For  the  next  four 
months  hardly  a  day  passed  without  their  meet- 
ing. Mr.  Lansbury's  greatest  concern  was 
that  in  Poplar,  one  of  the  poorest  of  East  End 
districts,  the  problem  of  unemployment  had 
reached  an  acute  point.  The  workhouse  was 
inadequate  for  the  accommodation  of  those 
who  wished  to  enter,  and  great  distress  was  be- 
ing experienced  by  many  others  in  the  district 
who  were  not  applying  to  the  Guardians  for 


FARM  COLONIES:  LAINDON  4,1 

relief.  Mr.  Fels  was  asked  to  advance  money 
for  a  vigorous  agitation  and  this  he  did.  A 
deputation  of  a  thousand  women  was  or- 
ganized and  sent  from  Mile  End  to  West- 
minster. From  among  these,  the  first  deputa- 
tion of  working  class  women  went  to  the  House 
of  Commons.  It  was  interesting  that  this 
was  the  first  deputation  of  its  kind  to  enter  the 
House,  and  probably  gave  to  the  Suffragists 
their  idea  of  petitioning  in  the  same  manner. 
On  this  occasion  only  working  class  women 
waited  upon  Mr.  Balfour  and  Sir  Henry 
Campbell-Bannerman.  Some  scores  of  mem- 
bers were  interviewed  the  same  afternoon. 
Nothing,  However,  was  done  that  session. 

But  Mr.  Fels  was  not  content  to  wait.  He 
proceeded  to  worry  the  Local  Government 
Board,  and  persuaded  Mr.  Walter  Long  to 
sanction  the  use  of  some  land  he  was  ready  to 
buy  and  lend  to  the  Poplar  Board  of  Guard- 
ians. This  move  was,  of  course,  supported  by 
Mr.  Lansbury's  vigorous  agitation  outside. 
One  hundred  acres  were  bought  at  Laindon 
and  the  first  farm  colony  for  the  unemployed 
was  established.  It  is  noteworthy  that  in  con- 


42         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

nection  with  this  purchase  some  one  of  the 
Guardians  let  out  the  fact  that  the  farm  in 
question  was  to  be  secured,  and  in  consequence 
the  price  was  increased  more  than  five  hun- 
dred pounds.  The  arrangement  was  that  the 
farm  should  be  let  to  the  Poplar  Guardians 
for  a  term  of  three  years  at  the  rent  of  one 
peppercorn,  and  that  the  Guardians  should 
have  the  option  of  purchase  for  the  price  paid 
at  any  time  during  their  tenancy.  Possession 
was  taken  in  March,  1904,  and  one  hundred 
able-bodied  paupers  were  set  to  work.  Tem- 
porary structures  for  dormitories,  kitchen, 
laundry  and  lavatory  were  added,  and  a  re- 
servoir for  water  supply  was  immediately 
built. 

Many  newspaper  correspondents  visited 
the  farm  and  the  experiment  became  widely 
known.  The  superintendent  announced  that 
forty  of  the  hundred  would  be  acceptable  as 
laborers  anywhere  if  he  were  the  employer. 
Over  a  dozen  were  old  soldiers  of  at  least  ten 
years'  service  and  all  but  one  had  stripes  or 
medals;  no  one  had  a  pension.  In  contrast 
with  the  degenerative  restrictions  of  the  work- 


FARM  COLONIES:  LAINDON  43 

house,  the  men  were  given  great  freedom. 
Papers,  books  and  games  were  provided,  and 
Mr.  Fels  sent  down  a  piano.  The  success  of 
the  colony  was  immediately  manifest  to  all 
except  those  who  believe  that  the  workhouse 
test  is  a  foundation  of  the  British  Empire. 
As  an  example  of  what  was  considered  en- 
lightened procedure,  the  following  may  be 
quoted  from  a  letter  in  the  Times  by  a  Pad- 
dington  Guardian: 

May  I  draw  attention  to  the  methods  pursued  by 
the  Paddington  Guardians  for  the  last  thirty  years 
in  connection  with  the  unemployed?  .  .  . 

A  married  man  on  applying  for  relief  is  offered 
work  in  the  labor  yard  where  firewood  is  made.  The 
work  is  renewed  week  by  week  if  necessary,  and  if  the 
man's  conduct  is  reported  well  of  by  the  labor  mas- 
ter. .  .  .  For  his  further  help,  the  labor  yard  is 
constantly  visited  by  an  officer  of  the  Church  Army, 
and  the  labor  master  gives  him  opportunity  to  seek 
work.  Many  years'  experience  has  shown  the  suc- 
cess of  this  method.  ...  In  Paddington  there  are 
some  thirty  thousand  people  who  in  Mr.  Charles 
Booth's  words  "have  a  struggle  to  obtain  the  neces- 
saries of  life  and  make  both  ends  meet,"  yet  year 
after  year  men  in  Paddington,  who  by  experience 
know  what  winter  suffering  is,  persistently  refrain 
from  seeking  means  by  which  they  and  their  wives 
and  families  may  be  fed  and  warmed. 


44        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

This  shows  how  far  the  Laindon  experiment 
had  gone  beyond  what  was  commonly  accepted 
as  enlightened  practice  in  the  administration 
of  relief.  An  illustrated  booklet  was  issued, 
and  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the  country  came 
to  see  the  experiment. 

The  policy  accepted  and  made  effective  by 
the  Poplar  Board  of  Guardians  seemed  to  Mr. 
Fels  to  offer  that  combination  of  public  author- 
ity and  private  enterprise  which  would  solve 
his  problem.  He  therefore  proceeded  with 
the  acquisition  of  farm  properties  and  at  the 
same  time  approached  the  various  metropoli- 
tan Boards  of  Guardians  and  extended  his 
offer  generally  to  all  parts  of  the  Kingdom. 
At  first  these  bodies  seemed  eager  and  many 
of  them  invited  Mr.  Fels  to  attend  and  ex- 
plain the  terms  of  his  offer.  Public  bodies 
are  as  acquisitive  as  individuals,  and  the  glory 
of  their  administrative  achievement  is  meas- 
ured inversely  on  the  scale  of  expense.  No 
amelioration  of  the  lot  of  the  poor  is  creditable 
if  it  increases  the  rate.  Public  feeling  shud- 
ders At  starvation  but  does  not  in  the  least  mind 
permanent  destitution. 


FARM  COLONIES:  LAINDON  45 

The  Board  of  Guardians  and  the  adminis- 
tration of  relief  stand  historically  and  actually 
apart  from  the  general  system  of  local  gov- 
ernment. It  has  no  responsibility  to  or  con- 
nection with  the  county  or  borough  council. 
It  maintains  a  separate  election,  a  separate 
rate  and  a  separate  connection  with  the  Local 
Government  Board.  Members  are  unpaid 
and  seek  election  for  the  sake  of  local  prestige. 
The  board's  functions  are  the  maintenance  of 
a  workhouse  and  the  administration  of  outdoor 
relief.  The  principle  which  animates  all  its 
activities  is  that  of  the  old  Poor  Law  which 
provided  that  the  state  of  any  person  seeking 
relief  must  be  calculatedly  kept  lower  than 
that  of  the  lowest  paid  laborer.  It  has  always 
been  supposed  that  an  automatic  test  of  desti- 
tution was  provided  by  making  the  conditions 
of  relief  unattractive.  The  boards  are,  there- 
fore, not  guardians  of  the  poor  but  of  the  funds 
intended  to  relieve  them.  Naturally  only 
those  individuals  are  elected  who  are  prepared 
to  keep  the  rate  down  to  that  point  which  will 
just  guard  a  locality  from  the  accusation  of 
permitting  its  poor  to  starve.  The  provisions 


46        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

of  the  Minority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law  Com- 
mission, which  involved  the  abolition  of  guard- 
ians and  the  assimilation  of  relief  to  the  gen- 
eral administration  of  county  and  borough 
councils,  with  a  change  of  the  principle  of 
saving  from  starvation  to  one  of  saving 
from  destitution  itself,  have  not  commended 
themselves  to  the  British  public;  they  are 
socialistic. 

The  close  and  local  responsibility  of  guard- 
ians to  rate  payers  with  its  necessary  conse- 
quence in  the  kind  of  personnel  thus  selected, 
explains  the  reception  which  Mr.  Fels  met  in 
his  efforts  to  help  the  poor  to  help  themselves. 
There  was  also  another  characteristic.  In 
Great  Britain  one  understands  charity,  and 
one  understands  business,  but  no  one  has  yet 
understood  that  the  two  could  in  any  way  be 
combined.  The  provision  of  land  to  form 
labor  colonies  seemed  at  first  glance  the  act 
of  the  amiable  philanthropist  to  be  fully  ex- 
ploited and  rewarded  with  the  usual  fatuous 
vote  of  thanks.  The  moment  the  conditions 
were  disclosed,  the  whole  transaction  appeared 
to  discerning  guardians  as  a  wolf  in  sheep's 


FARM  COLONIES:  LAINDON  47 

clothing,  business  parading  as  philanthropy, 
and  Mr.  Fels  a  sharp  business  man,  an  Ameri- 
can and  a  Jew,  trying  to  extricate  himself  from 
bad  land  deals  at  the  public  expense,  or  else 
seizing  the  three  years'  improvement  which  the 
colony  might  give  the  land.  Mr.  Fels,  of 
course,  had  no  desire  for  the  cheap  glory  of 
the  philanthropist  which  comes  of  relieving 
others  of  work  and  responsibility,  and  his  de- 
sire was  to  facilitate  a  new  modus  operandi  in 
dealing  with  unemployment.  He  was  willing 
to  risk  losses  to  achieve  his  object,  but  he  saw 
as  always  that  to  be  permanently  beneficial  a 
plan  must  stand  on  its  own  feet  and  not  live 
on  the  passing  bounty  of  any  individual. 

An  example  of  the  way  in  which  Mr.  Pels' 
offer  was  met  may  not  be  out  of  place.  At  a 
meeting  of  the  Distress  Committee  of  Strat- 
ford a  discussion  took  place,  the  lines  of  which 
are  indicated  by  the  following  extracts : 

The  Executive  Subcommittee  presented  a  report 
upon  the  farm  colony  proposals.  They  had  received 
an  offer  from  Mr.  J.  Fels  of  an  estate  at  Wickford 
of  some  five  hundred  acres  at  a  peppercorn  rent  for 
three  years ;  the  Committee  then  to  have  the  right  of 
purchase  at  the  figure  at  which  Mr.  Fels  acquired  the 


48         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

property.  The  Subcommittee  secured  the  opinion 
of  Mr.  Kemsley,  of  Messrs.  Kemsley  and  Co.,  who 
reported  strongly  against  the  use  of  the  land  for 
such  purposes  on  the  ground  of  its  unworkable  char- 
acter during  winter  months  at  a  time  when  in  West 
Ham  they  would  have  the  need  for  larger  scope  for 
a  farm  colony.  Mr.  Kemsley  stated  the  reasons  for 
such  an  opinion  which  were  strongly  supported  by 
the  Subcommittee  who  spent  a  day  on  the  farm  and 
went  into  the  full  details.  .  .  .  Mr.  Fels  said  he  did 
not  agree  with  the  opinions  of  the  expert  because 
they  were  not  actual  facts.  .  .  .  Two  hundred  men 
with  spades  could  be  put  on  the  land,  the  arable  land 
could  be  broken  up  and  the  pasture  land  could  all  be 
cultivated.  They  could  grow  fruit  there.  He  had 
communicated  with  the  Essex  County  Council  ask- 
ing them  to  put  ditches  in  the  main  road  to  drain  the 
ground.  .  .  .  The  farm  was  as  good  as  they  could 
get  anywhere  within  fifty  miles  of  London.  .  .  .  Mr. 
Paul  stated  that  on  the  farm  Mr.  Fels  offered  to  the 
West  Ham  Board  of  Guardians  he  wanted  to  oc- 
cupy the  valuable  frontage  himself.  Mr.  Fels : 
"Who  says  that?  "  Mr.  Paul:  "That  is  what  you 
told  the  Board  of  Guardians."  Mr.  Fels :  "That  is 
absolutely  untrue."  Mr.  Paul:  "Do  you  say  that 
is  untrue?  Do  you  deny  the  truth  of  my  state- 
ment?" .  .  .  Mr.  Fels  said  it  was  no  use  putting 
two  hundred  men  on  the  land  unless  they  placed  some 
incentive  before  them.  He  was  to  retain  20  per 
cent,  of  the  land,  to  provide  plots  on  which  were  to 
be  erected  buildings  to  be  let  for  small  holdings. 
He  did  not  hope  to  make  any  money  out  of  it.  He 
made  money  out  of  his  business.  He  was  not  specu- 


FARM  COLONIES:  LAINDON  49 

lating  in  property.  He  reserved  the  right  to  be  be- 
lieved until  they  proved  him  to  be  a  liar.  .  .  .  Mr. 
George  Hay  remarked  he  had  no  wish  to  make  any 
charge  against  Mr.  Fels  because  he  believed  that  gen- 
tleman meant  well.  He  made  a  fair  offer  if  the  land 
was  suitable  .  .  .  they  had  an  eye  upon  their  two 
thousand  pounds  and  that  impressed  upon  them  the 
necessity  of  getting  land.  .  .  .  Mr.  Arnold  Hills 
protested  against  the  gross  discourtesy  with  which 
Mr.  Fels  had  been  treated.  There  was  such  a  thing 
as  casting  pearls  before  those  who  did  not  appreci- 
ate them.  He  had  farmed  Essex  land  for  more  than 
twenty  years,  and  he  could  not  accept  Mr.  Kemsley's 
report.  Mr.  Kemsley  said  they  would  do  more  harm 
than  good  there.  Of  course,  they  would  never  do  so 
if  they  did  the  same  way  the  Essex  farmers  did,  but 
with  spade  digging  it  would  grow  almost  any  kind  of 
crop.  Mr.  Kemsley  said  he  felt  he  had  a  very  thank- 
less task  as  they  had  a  gentleman  who  had  offered 
them  land  on  very  favorable  terms  for  a  farm  colony. 
All  he  could  say  was  exactly  opposite  to  what  Mr. 
Fels  had  said  ...  no  business  man  would  take  this 
heavy  land  on  as  a  speculation.  .  .  .  Counsellor 
Watts  said  the  Subcommittee  were  more  than  anx- 
ious to  get  men  on  the  ground  but  they  did  not  wish 
to  commit  themselves  to  impracticable  schemes. 
They  were  anxious  to  get  the  two  thousand  pounds 
but  they  were  going  to  be  honest  to  themselves  and 
the  general  public.  He  was  not  going  to  be  a  party 
to  any  half  measures.  .  .  .  On  the  motion  of  Mr. 
Mills  a  vote  of  thanks  was  also  tendered  to  Mr.  Mas- 
terman,  Mr.  Fels  and  Mr.  Lansbury  for  their  at- 
tendance. 


Hollesley  Bay  and  Mayland 

A  S  there  seemed  considerable  prospect  of 
<**•  local  authorities  taking  advantage  of  Mr. 
Fels'  offer,  now  broadly  known  through  the 
press,  he  and  Mr.  Lansbury  found  themselves 
not  long  after  the  successful  beginning  of  the 
Laindon  experiment  making  visits  throughout 
England,  and  inspecting  land  of  all  kinds. 
Through  Mr.  Goodchild,  an  expert  from  the 
London  County  Council  who  advised  as  to  the 
development  of  Laindon,  an  estate  at  Hollesley 
Bay  was  discovered  to  be  available.  This  was 
a  property  of  thirteen  hundred  acres  organ- 
ized as  an  agricultural  college  for  the  sons  of 
gentlemen,  but  it  had  fallen  upon  bad  times 
and  was  now  for  sale.  Mr.  Fels  and  Mr. 
Lansbury  went  to  the  estate  and  interviewed 
the  managing  director,  who  treated  them  very 
much  as  interfering  intruders,  and  seemed  to 

50 


HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAYLAND       51 

think  that  although  the  place  was  for  sale  it 
was  very  wicked  for  any  one  to  think  of  buy- 
ing it.  For  his  consolation  nothing  was  said 
about  purchase  or  the  use  for  which  it  was  in- 
tended. The  difficulty  was  that  the  price  was 
something  over  thirty  thousand  pounds  which 
seemed  so  much  that  there  might  be  no  public 
authority  willing  to  take  it  over. 

Meanwhile  matters  were  becoming  more 
acute,  and  the  Government  was  being  greatly 
worried  partly  owing  to  the  agitation  which 
had  been  set  on  foot.  Mr.  Walter  Long 
called  a  conference  of  guardians  and  counsel- 
lors and  from  it  formed  an  organization  known 
as  the  London  Unemployed  Fund  composed 
of  representatives  from  all  authorities  in  Lon- 
don. Mr.  Lansbury  was  a  member  of  this 
body  and  although  very  ill  at  the  time  man- 
aged to  attend  the  first  meeting.  A  letter  was 
read  from  Mr.  Fels  offering  the  body  the  loan 
of  an  estate  of  thirteen  hundred  acres  for  three 
years  free  of  rent.  Mr.  Lansbury  rose  and 
quietly  moved  that  this  generous  offer  be  ac- 
cepted. It  was  seconded  by  Mr.  Grinling  of 
Woolwich,  who  was  aware  of  the  plan,  and  be- 


62        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

fore  the  Board  realized  what  it  was  doing  the 
motion  was  carried.  Mr.  Fels  then  bought 
the  estate  and  within  a  few  weeks  the  place 
was  occupied  by  five  or  six  hundred  of  the  un- 
employed. The  question  arose  as  to  how  the 
land  should  be  worked,  and  after  some  months 
Mr.  Thomas  Smith,  later  Mr.  Fels'  manager 
at  Mayland,  was  called  in  as  expert.  Among 
the  men  there  were  numbers  who  showed  great 
adaptability  and  proved  capable  of  doing  much 
better  work  than  under  the  conditions  possible 
at  the  colony.  The  problem  was  therefore  as 
to  whether  some  of  the  men  should  not  be  per- 
manently settled  on  the  land.  This  raised 
the  difficulty  of  cottages,  and  the  degree  to 
which  development  could  be  undertaken  was 
determined  by  whether  or  not  the  estate  would 
remain  public  property.  Mr.  Fels  advanced 
more  money  with  which  was  started  a  terrific 
agitation  in  London  for  the  passing  of  the  Un- 
employed Workmen  Act.  Again  the  women 
were  brought  out,  some  ten  thousand  chiefly 
from  East  and  South  London,  and  a  great 
procession  marched  across  London,  while  a 
deputation  of  twenty  or  thirty  women  and 


HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAYLAND       53 

some  men  representing  the  London  Trades' 
Council  waited  upon  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour. 
Very  little  encouragement  was  received  from 
him  but  the  movement  persisted  and  finally  the 
Bill,  the  fate  of  which  had  hung  in  the  balance, 
was  passed  owing  it  was  thought  at  that  time 
to  a  speech  by  Mr.  Joseph  Chamberlain.  This 
was  at  the  end  of  1905.  With  the  advent  of 
the  Central  (Unemployed)  Body  set  up  under 
the  Unemployed  Workmen  Act,  the  position 
was  more  secure,  but  there  was  a  shortage  of 
funds  to  carry  on  the  work  at  Hollesley  Bay. 
As  a  result  of  the  appeal  made  to  Mr.  Balfour 
by  the  deputation,  Queen  Alexandra  opened 
a  fund,  and  for  one  winter  this  fund  provided 
all  the  money  necessary. 

The  Central  Body  which  had  taken  the 
place  of  the  London  Unemployed  Fund  was 
persuaded  to  take  over  the  estate  at  Hollesley, 
and  Mr.  Fels  loaned  two  thousand  pounds 
with  which  to  build  cottages.  As  soon  as 
these  cottages  were  completed  they  were  oc- 
cupied by  the  London  men  who  had  been 
trained  on  the  colony.  The  attention  of  Mr. 
Fels  and  Mr.  Lansbury  was  then  given  to  ex- 


54        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

tending  the  plan  so  as  to  deal  with  larger  num- 
bers of  men.  It  was  intended  to  purchase 
another  estate  and  much  territory  was  scoured 
to  find  a  suitable  one.  It  was  found  quite 
close  to  Hollesley  Bay  and  the  purchase  was 
at  the  point  of  completion  when  another  factor 
entered  into  and  altered  the  whole  situation. 
With  the  change  of  government  early  in 
1906,  Mr.  John  Burns  became  president  of 
the  Local  Government  Board.  It  is  difficult 
even  now  to  estimate  the  harm  done  to  the 
cause  of  progress  by  this  one  man.  So  long 
a  follower  and  bearer  of  the  flag  of  democracy, 
he  entered  the  Cabinet  as  the  representative 
of  the  people.  It  was  thought  that  now  the 
dumb  masses  had  their  spokesman  in  high 
places,  that  injustice  and  oppression  could 
claim  attention  at  the  very  fount  of  power, 
that  the  liberal  cause  had  at  last  definitely 
joined  hands  with  that  of  the  working  multi- 
tude. Instead  of  that,  England  has  witnessed 
for  nearly  a  decade  the  administration  of  a 
government  department  utterly  oblivious  of 
the  tendency  of  the  time,  deaf  to  every  sugges- 
tion of  reform,  blind  to  everything  that  might 


HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAYLAND      55 

disturb  the  established  order,  so  filled  with  ven- 
omous reaction  that  it  has  become  an  odious 
thing  to  the  minds  of  all  who  wanted  to  help 
the  lot  of  the  poor.  Mr.  John  Burns  forbade 
the  Central  Body  to  have  anything  to  do  with 
the  purchase  of  a  new  estate  and  the  whole  plan 
was  ruined.  All  the  progressive  action  of 
those  enlightened  statesmen,  Walter  Long  and 
Gerald  Balfour,  who  had  presided  over  the  de- 
partment, was  reversed,  and  Hollesley  Bay 
became  merely  a  country  annex  to  take  the 
overflow  from  London  workhouses. 

It  will  have  been  discerned  that  Mr.  Pels' 
main  interest  was  to  establish  a  permanent  re- 
lation between  the  land  and  as  many  of  the 
workers  as  could  adapt  themselves  to  its  cul- 
tivation. Of  each  property  offered  the  pub- 
lic authorities,  he  proposed  to  retain  some- 
thing like  a  quarter,  to  be  developed  into  small 
holdings  and  receive  men  trained  in  the  colony 
to  serve,  at  any  rate,  as  an  example  to  the 
others.  The  whole  work  was  an  endeavor  to 
remedy  that  topsyturvydom  in  which  millions 
of  acres  lying  uncultivated  and  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  men  wanting  work  and  ready  to  cul- 


56         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

tivate  it,  could  not  be  brought  together.  Plans 
were  made  for  utilizing  a  property  at  Wye  as 
a  colony  for  women,  but  once  more  Mr.  John 
Burns  blocked  the  way  to  success.  It  is  worth 
recording  that  during  the  same  administration 
of  the  Local  Government  Board,  the  Com- 
mission appointed  for  considering  the  reform 
of  the  Poor  Law  presented  its  report.  The 
ends  for  which  Mr.  Lansbury  had  been  work- 
ing slowly  but  with  success  were  embodied  in 
the  systematized  provisions  of  the  Minority 
Report ;  but  Poor  Law  reform,  whether  along 
the  lines  of  the  majority  or  of  the  minority, 
had  no  chance  so  long  as  its  destiny  lay  in  the 
hands  of  Mr.  John  Burns. 

Balked  thus  in  endeavoring  to  contribute 
to  the  solution  of  the  unemployed  problem,  Mr. 
Fels  decided  to  test  possibilities  on  his  own  ac- 
count. He  had  acquired  a  property  at  May- 
land  near  Althorn  in  Essex  about  forty  miles 
from  London,  and  now  proceeded  to  use  it  for 
the  purposes  of  his  experiment.  The  remain- 
ing possibility  seemed  to  him  to  lie  along  the 
line  of  small  holdings.  He  therefore  pro- 
ceeded to  establish  upon  the  farm  in  question 


HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAYLAND      57 

something  over  twenty  holdings  of  from  five 
to  ten  acres,  each  equipped  with  dwelling  and 
out-houses  and  partly  planted  with  fruit.  The 
larger  portion  of  the  estate  was  carried  on  as 
a  farm  under  the  management  of  Mr.  Thomas 
Smith,  an  expert  agriculturist  and  enlightened 
man,  who  was  willing  to  give  the  small  holders 
needful  advice  and  supervise  their  work  until 
they  had  learned  to  find  their  own  way.  For 
the  purposes  of  instruction  and  also  to  give 
a  demonstration  of  the  possibilities  of  inten- 
sive culture,  a  French  garden  was  established 
which  was  extended  to  cover  two  acres, 
equipped  with  frames  and  bell-glasses,  sheds 
and  watering  facilities  and  a  great  range  of 
hot-houses.  A  gardener  was  secured  from 
near  Paris  and  kept  for  two  years  to  show 
the  best  methods  that  were  being  utilized  in 
France.  The  experiment  was  a  costly  one, 
something  like  twenty-five  thousand  pounds 
being  necessary  to  equip  the  estate. 

It  was  Mr.  Fels'  desire  on  this  occasion  to 
reach  a  somewhat  better  type  of  industrial 
product  than  the  unemployed  examples  he  had 
been  dealing  with.  The  small  holdings  were 


58         JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

therefore  allotted  to  individuals  with  families 
who  possessed  a  certain  minimum  amount  of 
capital.  Needless  to  say  there  were  many 
hundreds  of  applicants. 

There  was  much  hope,  in  the  early  days  of 
liberal  administration,  of  a  great  development 
in  the  direction  of  small  holdings  through  the 
vigorous  application  of  the  Small  Holdings 
Act  which  conferred  considerable  power  upon 
county  councils,  but  as  everyone  knows,  the 
'Act  remained,  and  still  remains,  a  dead  letter. 
The  Liberal  Party  is  in  the  view  of  a  foreigner 
a  most  interesting  and  curious  political  prod- 
uct. It  maintains  itself  by  lofty  professions 
and  magnificent  promises  combined  with  a 
minimum  of  achievement.  The  majority  of  its 
leaders  are  politicians,  that  is,  individuals  who 
are  more  concerned  with  talking  to  the  public 
than  with  statesmanship.  Its  chief  pride  is 
that  of  proposing  innumerable  bills.  The  dif- 
ference between  it  and  the  Conservative  Party 
is  that  whereas  the  latter  proposes  little  and 
does  little,  the  former  proposes  much  and  does 
nothing.  After  nearly  a  decade  of  Liberal 
gorernment,  the  worker  may  well  ask  himself 


HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAYLAND      59 

if  his  condition  is  better  than  it  was  ten  years 
ago,  apart  from  the  usual  trade  cycle.  There 
are,  of  course,  Liberals  who  feel  that  they  made 
the  intervening  period  of  prosperity.  After 
all  there  is  only  one  important  matter,  and 
that  is  to  receive  a  just  return  for  one's  labor. 
To  redress  adventitious  grievances  is  a  small 
matter  when  wages  do  not  rise,  and  their  pur- 
chasing power  is  always  declining.  Prosper- 
ity, like  most  other  things,  appears  to  be  a 
monopoly.  But  in  those  earlier  days  it  was 
thought,  and  Mr.  Fels  shared  the  delusion, 
that  the  time  was  arriving  when  Britain  might 
be  an  agricultural  nation  and  again  fasten  in 
the  soil  the  roots  of  its  national  life. 

So  far  as  concerns  the  Mayland  experi- 
ment the  results  were  in  some  small  measure 
successful.  One-third  of  the  small  holders 
have  remained  until  the  present  and  have  no 
desire  to  return  to  industrial  pursuits,  but  their 
labor  has  been  very  hard  and  they  have  no  more 
than  made  a  living. 

They  were  nearly  all  townsmen  without 
previous  experience  of  farm  life  except  such 
as  might  have  been  gained  on  allotments. 


60         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Several  were  from  Woolwich,  others  from  Pop- 
lar, Peckham,  etc.,  and  one  or  two  from  the 
provinces.  As  already  noted,  considerable 
expenditure  was  involved  in  preparing  the 
holdings.  Not  only  had  the  holdings  to  be 
laid  out  and  provided  with  buildings,  and  the 
land  prepared  for  cultivation,  but  new  roads 
were  necessary,  and  it  soon  became  clear  that 
market  gardening  would  be  faced  with  the 
serious  if  not  fatal  difficulty  of  a  shortage  of 
water.  Mr.  Pels  endeavored  to  meet  this  by 
establishing  underground  tanks  for  rain  wa- 
ter, and  by  sinking  an  artesian  well,  with  tank 
and  water  mains.  There  was  a  borough  sup- 
ply to  the  neighborhood  but  this  had  always 
been  inadequate  and  the  public  authority  has 
made  no  effort  to  remedy  the  defect.  Almost 
before  the  holdings  were  in  working  order  and 
before  profits  from  produce  were  in  sight,  there 
supervened  the  exceptionally  bad  season  of 
1907.  This  exhausted  much  of  the  holders' 
own  capital  and  Mr.  Pels  gave  further  aid  in 
the  form  of  loans. 

When  returns  began  to  come  in,  it  was 
discovered  that  two  factors  in  the  situation 


HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAYLAND      61 

blocked  the  road  to  success.  In  the  first  place, 
all  produce  had  to  be  marketed  at  Covent  Gar- 
den, and  in  the  second,  it  had  to  be  sent  over 
the  Great  Eastern  Railway.  Commission 
rates  and  high  railway  tariffs  left  only  a  small 
margin  of  profit.  It  is  an  interesting  fact  to 
be  noted  in  passing  that  the  whole  transport 
and  marketing  organization  is  fatally  discrimi- 
native against  the  British  producer.  In  prac- 
tice a  position  of  preference  is  given  to  the  for- 
eign market  gardener.  The  rents  charged  to 
the  holders  had  to  be  altered  from  time  to  time 
because  of  the  same  reasons  that  had  called  for 
the  additional  expenditure.  They  were  at  first 
based  on  4  per  cent,  of  the  capital  outlay, 
equivalent  to  an  average  rent  of  thirty  pounds 
for  each  holding.  The  tenure  was  in  the  first 
instance  annual  for  a  preliminary  period  of 
three  years,  at  the  end  of  which,  if  the  land- 
lord and  tenant  were  mutually  agreeable,  a 
long  lease  was  to  be  arranged.  It  was  agreed 
to  consider  several  of  the  items  of  expenditure 
as  experimental  and  therefore  chargeable  to 
the  owner.  In  consequence,  rents  were  re- 
duced to  an  average  of  twenty-four  pounds 


62        JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

per  holding.  In  1908  the  scale  of  rents  was 
again  revised.  Rent  for  1907  was  wholly  de- 
ferred. In  1908  half  rent  was  to  be  paid  and 
half  deferred.  In  1909  three-quarters  were 
to  be  paid  and  one-quarter  deferred.  In  1910 
the  full  rent  was  to  be  paid.  The  deferred 
rent  was  to  be  spread  over  the  succeeding  thir- 
teen years  and  added  to  the  normal  rent.  In 
1910  there  was  another  failure  of  crops,  and 
the  burden  of  debt  owing  by  almost  every 
holder,  for  money  lent  and  rent  due,  was  fast 
assuming  proportions  which  made  repayment 
almost  hopeless.  The  holders  were  offered 
one  of  two  alternatives.  Anyone  who  had  be- 
come hopeless  of  ultimate  success  and  wished 
to  give  up  his  holding  could  have  a  clear  receipt 
for  all  money  borrowed  and  rent  owing,  and 
would  receive  as  a  gift  half  of  the  amount  of 
his  original  capital;  or,  each  holder  who  re- 
mained would  live  rent  free  up  to  and  includ- 
ing Lady  Day,  1911.  Should  he  for  four  suc- 
cessive quarter  days  following  that  date  have 
paid  the  rent  due  according  to  his  agreement, 
he  would  be  entitled  to  and  freely  given  a  full 
discharge  of  all  moneys  owing  up  to  the  time 


HOLLESLEY  BAY  AND  MAY1AND      63 

of  the  offer.  About  half  the  holders  chose 
the  one  alternative  and  half  the  other.  Among 
those  who  left  were  two  who  had  long  con- 
templated emigration  to  Australia  and  had  now 
found  the  opportunity. 

From  this  costly  experiment  Mr.  Pels 
learned  a  number  of  lessons.  There  was 
clearly  manifest  a  desire  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
dustrial laborer,  to  enter  agricultural  life  as 
shown  in  the  twelve  hundred  or  more  applica- 
tions for  these  few  holdings,  and  a  strong  de- 
termination among  most  of  those  who  had  em- 
barked, to  continue  the  new  mode  of  life  in 
spite  of  all  discouragement.  It  was  clear 
again  that  some  of  the  factors  that  could  have 
turned  failure  into  success  lay  outside  his  hands 
and  were  of  the  nature  of  public  services  and 
utilities.  Most  important  of  all,  it  became  evi- 
dent that  for  a  number  of  reasons  every  small 
holder  would  lie  in  the  hollow  of  the  landlord's 
hand.  Other  impressive  facts  came  to  light. 
The  rates  paid  in  1905,  when  the  population 
was  fourteen,  amounted  to  thirty  pounds 
twelve  and  threepence.  In  1910,  with  one 
hundred  and  seventy-four  persons,  the  rates 


64        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

amounted  to  one  hundred  and  fifty-six  pounds 
nine  and  twopence.  The  land  was  originally 
purchased  at  about  eight  pounds  three  shillings 
per  acre,  but  after  the  enterprise  developed  it 
was  not  possible  to  obtain  adjoining  land  for 
less  than  fourteen  pounds  per  acre.  Thus 
their  own  industry,  by  increasing  the  land 
values  for  all  the  neighboring  landlords, 
blocked  the  way  to  expansion.  Mr.  Fels  had 
learned  that  the  score  of  holdings  which  he 
had  established  and  supported  could  do  nothing 
towards  the  hundreds  of  thousands  that  would 
be  necessary  to  solve  the  problem  of  poverty. 


i 


VI 
Why  Small  Holdings  Fail 

T  was  now  necessary  for  Mr.  Fels  to  recon- 
sider the  whole  theory  of  small  holdings. 
His  conviction  that  a  return  to  agriculture  was 
essential  to  a  healthy  national  life  and  a  pre- 
ventive of  poverty  was  stronger  than  ever, 
but  the  existing  modes  of  providing  small  hold- 
ings seemed  fatally  defective.  It  was  impor- 
tant to  inquire  whether  the  conditions  under 
which  intensive  agriculture  was  carried  on  in 
continental  countries  would  throw  light  upon 
and  assist  to  the  solution  of  the  problem.  It 
seemed  clear  that  the  authorities  even  with 
powers  of  compulsory  acquisition  would  do  lit- 
tle toward  providing  land.  The  first  impres- 
sion of  one  visiting  the  gardening  districts  of 
Denmark,  Holland  and  Belgium  is  likely  to 
be  misleading.  That  enormous  quantities  are 
produced  and  placed  on  the  markets  goes  with- 
out saying,  and  there  is  the  appearance  of  great 

65 


66        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

prosperity,  but  matters  do  not,  on  closer  in- 
spection, turn  out  to  be  so  satisfactory.  The 
small  holders  in  all  these  countries  receive  small 
benefit  of  their  labor,  and  live  in  a  large  propor- 
tion of  cases  on  the  borders  of  privation.  Any 
satisfactory  proposals  looking  to  repopulation 
of  the  country  must  take  these  facts  into  ac- 
count and  give  some  explanation  of  their  cause. 
The  first  fact  that  inquiry  discloses  is  that 
there  are  many  more  would-be  small  holders 
than  there  are  small  holdings.  In  other  words 
there  is  a  perpetual  competition,  the  tendency  of 
which  is  to  put  the  highest  premium  on  merely 
obtaining  land.  One  who  is  willing  to  sacrifice 
in  the  highest  degree  the  benefits  of  his  hold- 
ing is  the  one  who  will  obtain  it.  This  keeps 
the  rental  value  of  land  so  high  as  to  take  from 
the  small  holder  all  except  the  merest  liveli- 
hood. In  some  parts  of  Flanders  the  price  of 
land  before  the  war  had  risen  to  several  hun- 
dred pounds  per  acre.  In  Denmark  for  many 
years  land  values  have  been  rising  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  In  the  latter  country,  also,  nearly  all 
that  the  landlord  leaves  is  taken  in  the  form 
of  taxes  levied  on  buildings  and  equipment. 


WHY  SMALL  HOLDINGS  FAIL          67 

It  is  obvious  then  that  communities  of  small 
holders,  however  much  they  may  contribute 
to  the  prosperity  of  a  country,  participate  in 
that  prosperity  in  only  a  minimum  degree,  and 
so  far  from  relieving  the  burden  of  poverty 
merely  swell  it.  The  conditions  that  militate 
against  small  holdings  and  are  even  fatal  to 
their  success  are  landlordism  and  the  taxing  of 
improvements.  All  labor  put  into  a  holding 
merely  increases  its  rental  value  which  the  land- 
lord promptly  seizes,  and  its  ratable  value 
which  the  collector  of  taxes  quite  as  promptly 
takes  into  account. 

Statistics  in  Denmark  show  that  the  small 
holders  produce  in  live  stock  alone  double  the 
quantity  of  horned  cattle  per  acre  that  are 
produced  in  the  country  as  a  whole,  over  three 
times  as  many  pigs  and  over  twice  as  many 
fowls.  The  movement  toward  increasing 
small  holdings  has  been  so  strong  since  the 
beginning  of  the  century  that  more  than  half 
the  increase  in  population  is  found  in  the  coun- 
try districts.  In  spite  of  this  enormous  bene- 
fit which  the  community  derives  from  its  peas- 
ant farmers  both  in  quality  of  population  and 


68        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

quantity  of  output,  it  is  a  mistake  to  suppose 
that  they  lead  anything  but  a  life  of  poverty, 
and  in  too  many  cases  the  peasants  are  found 
in  a  state  not  far  removed  from  starvation. 
In  the  long  run,  therefore,  it  is  a  doubtful  bene- 
fit to  any  country  to  establish  small  holdings 
on  a  large  scale,  unless  the  workers  can  be 
guarded  from  injustice  and  assured  some  fair 
return  for  their  labor.  To  mention  Denmark 
is  to  produce  the  very  best  example.  In  Nor- 
way, Sweden,  Switzerland  and  Belgium  the 
conditions  have  been  much  worse,  and  even  in 
Denmark  the  peasant  is  doomed  to  frugal  fare 
in  order  to  export  to  England  what  he  pro- 
duces, to  have  the  money  to  pay  his  taxes  and 
the  interest  on  his  mortgage.  The  net  income 
of  the  Danish  small  holder  seldom  exceeds  fifty 
pounds  a  year.  It  is  interesting,  therefore,  to 
discover  why  it  is  that  intensive  culture  ap- 
plied to  ten  acres  produces  less  net  profit  than 
the  ordinary  tillage  of  thirty.  Expenses  are 
less,  as  there  is  not  so  much  plowing  or  manur- 
ing or  harvesting.  Moreover,  co-operation  has 
made  it  possible  to  market  with  the  greatest 
advantage,  at  any  rate  equal  to  that  possessed 


WHY  SMALL  HOLDINGS  FAIL          69 

by  the  larger  farmer.  Why  then,  if  the  small 
holder  produces  two  or  three  times  as  much 
per  acre  and  the  cost  of  production  of  any  given 
quantity  is  consequently  less,  does  he  not  re- 
ceive a  net  income  at  least  equivalent  to  that 
of  his  neighbor?  It  is  obvious  that  there  is 
something  wrong  if  three  times  the  gross  rev- 
enue per  acre  that  the  large  holder  receives 
does  not  net  sufficient  to  maintain  the  peasant 
farmer  in  a  relative  degree  of  comfort. 
Flanders  before  the  war  afforded  an  even  more 
striking  example.  In  this  great  garden  coun- 
try with  all  the  advantages  of  co-operation, 
only  a  small  percentage  were  proprietors  of 
their  holdings.  The  remainder  paid  an  in- 
creasingly high  rental  and  were  only  annual 
tenants  liable  to  be  dispossessed  without  com- 
pensation. Whatever  is  done  to  improve  a 
holding  at  once  increases  the  rent. 

The  price  of  land  in  these  countries  has 
been  constantly  mounting  up,  following  the 
rental  value  which  is  its  chief  basis.  In  Den- 
mark this  tendency  has  been  aided  by  the  in- 
cidence of  taxation.  Under  the  old  system 
there  was  a  tax  on  land  values  levied  along  with 


70         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

rates  according  to  a  very  old  valuation.  There 
was,  therefore,  an  inducement  for  the  owner 
of  land  either  to  cultivate  it  himself  or  else  to 
sell;  consequently  the  price  of  land  remained 
reasonable.  But  this  tax  was  abolished  by  the 
Liberal  Government  early  in  the  century  and 
replaced  by  other  taxes  which  fell  largely  on 
the  products  of  labor.  The  price  of  land  at 
once  advanced  to  cover  the  capitalized  value 
of  the  old  taxes  which  amounted  for  the  whole 
country  to  some  forty  million  pounds.  There 
was  no  longer  an  inducement  to  sell,  and  land 
gradually  withdrew  from  the  market.  In  two 
or  three  years  the  price  increased  25  to  40  per 
cent.  In  order  to  buy  a  holding,  therefore,  it  is 
necessary  to  sink  a  larger  proportion  of  ready 
capital  which  might  go  into  improvement, 
or  else  condemn  a  larger  proportion  of  the  la- 
bor product  to  pay  interest  on  mortgage  debt. 
If  improvements  are  carried  out,  the  new  taxes 
fall  upon  them  and  the  farmer's  labor  has  to 
pay  them  as  well  as  bear  the  mortgage  burden. 
The  large  holder  with  many  acres  and  few  im- 
provements escapes  with  a  small  tax  per  acre, 
while  the  small  holder  with  many  improve- 


WHY  SMALL  HOLDINGS  FAIL          71 

ments  pays  a  tax  per  acre  many  times  higher. 
The  foregoing  considerations  throw  valu- 
able light  upon  proposals  for  state  aid  in  the 
establishment  of  small  holdings.  These  are 
without  exception,  in  one  form  or  another,  pro- 
visions for  state  purchase.  They  usually  in- 
volve the  method  of  advancing  capital  at  a 
low  rate  of  interest  for  the  purchase  of  hold- 
ings, and  require  on  the  part  of  the  would-be 
holder  a  certain  proportion  of  the  necessary 
capital.  Invariably  the  land  desired  for  the 
purpose  mounts  to  a  quite  disproportionate 
price.  In  Denmark  very  often  the  land  spec- 
ulator is  willing  to  advance  to  the  purchaser 
the  proportion  of  capital  which  he  is  required 
to  provide,  knowing  that  he  will  recoup  him- 
self when  the  purchase  takes  place.  The  whole 
plan  is,  therefore,  a  demand  for  land  which 
forces  up  its  value  instead  of  increasing  the 
supply  and  making  it  cheap  and  accessible. 
Government  assistance  means,  therefore,  that 
the  peasant  may  obtain  land,  but  that  when 
obtained  he  will  not  lie  able  to  make  his  living 
upon  it.  In  one  of  his  terse  phrases  Mr.  Fels 
put  the  whole  matter  thus:  "Instead  of  men 


72        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

demanding  land,  the  land  must  be  made  to  de- 
mand men." 

How  then  can  circumstances  be  so  ar- 
ranged that  the  population  of  a  country  can 
make  use  of  that  country's  land?  There  are 
certain  well-known  facts  which  gave  a  point 
of  departure  to  Mr.  Eels'  thinking.  It  is  uni- 
versally true  that  the  conditions  of  labor  are 
best  in  a  new  country  where  land  is  cheap  and 
plentiful.  Wages  are  invariably  high.  In- 
stead of  many  men  competing  with  each  other 
to  secure  a  piece  of  work,  the  work  is  com- 
pelled to  look  for  a  man  and  pay  him  what  he 
earns.  No  one  is  compelled  to  continue  as 
laborer  either  in  industry  or  in  agriculture,  as 
it  is  easy  to  become  land-owner  and  therefore 
independent.  The  simple  effect  upon  the  la- 
bor market,  or  the  demand  for  men's  services, 
of  the  existence  of  cheap  and  accessible  land, 
contains  the  clue  to  the  whole  matter.  The 
same  is  seen  wherever  there  is  any  considerable 
amount  of  common  land.  A  little  while  ago 
the  Commission  appointed  to  investigate  the 
scarcity,  of  labor  and  the  consequent  high  wages 
in  Uganda,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this 


WHY  SMALL  HOLDINGS  FAIL          73 

was  due  to  the  existence  of  the  reserves,  large 
tracts  pre-empted  from  occupation  by  the  for- 
eigner; and  advocated  the  diminution  of  this 
territory  in  order  to  make  the  natives  work. 
A  European  example  was  to  be  found  in  the 
Ardennes  where  there  existed  common  lands 
with  a  sparse  population  and  little  industry, 
and  wages  were  far  higher  than  in  thickly  pop- 
ulated and  highly  cultivated  Flanders.  With 
accessible  land  the  universal  rule  is  that  if  in- 
dustry fails  to  pay  an  adequate  price  for  labor, 
the  latter  simply  removes  itself  to  the  land 
where  it  is  certain  of  its  livelihood.  It  was  not 
mere  greed  which  led  to  the  enclosure  of  Eng- 
lish commons  but  the  demand  for  cheap  labor. 
To  put  the  matter  bluntly,  men  were  shut  away 
from  their  one  great  recourse  in  order  to  be 
compelled  to  accept  the  employer's  own  price 
for  their  services. 

By  1908  it  was  very  clear  to  Mr.  Pels  not 
only  that  the  Small  Holdings  Act  would  not 
be  applied  but  that  if  it  should,  it  would  be  in- 
effective. He  could  see  now  that  state  pur- 
chase would  defeat  its  own  ends  and  that  the 
small  holder  working  with  government  aid 


74.        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

would  have  to  carry  a  burden  that  he  could 
not  support.  He  wanted  some  method  that 
would  make  land  plentiful  and  accessible  as 
in  new  countries.  But  unfortunately  in  Eu- 
rope and  especially  in  Britain,  the  land  is  pre- 
empted by  a  relatively  small  number  of  indi- 
viduals. It  was  necessary  to  make  them  re- 
linquish. Nationalization  by  purchase  did  not 
commend  itself  to  him  as  it  would  only  increase 
the  difficulty  which  he  was  trying  to  avoid. 
For  the  state  to  enter  the  market  means  the 
highest  possible  prices,  and  even  if  the  capital 
applied  should  bear  only  a  low  rate  of  interest, 
it  would  constitute  an  overwhelming/ burden 
for  the  peasant  farmer.  Land  to  be  useful 
for  small  holders  must  be  not  only  plentiful 
but  cheap,  or,  put  in  other  words,  its  value 
must  be  use  value.  In  this  way  Mr.  Fels  came 
to  see  that  the  only  effective  method  of  dealing 
with  the  problem  would  be  to  place  a  tax  upon 
the  value  of  land  apart  from  all  improvements. 
He  saw  that  if  such  a  tax  were  gradually  raised 
to  the  equivalence  of  rent,  which  is  the  ultimate 
basis  of  all  capitalized  land  value,  the  prices 
would  fall  to  a  use  basis.  No  one  would  care 


WHY  SMALL  HOLDINGS  FAIL          75 

to  hold  land  for  rent  if  this  rent  were  to  be  im- 
mediately collected  from  him  by  the  state,  and 
no  one  could  afford  to  hold  land  without  using 
it  to  the  fullest,  if  he  had  to  hand  over  its  an- 
nual rental  value  for  the  privilege  of  holding. 
The  plan  had  a  further  advantage  in  that 
improvements  would  be  relieved  of  the  taxa- 
tion which  is  found  to  act  so  harmfully  in  Den- 
mark, and  every  inducement  would  thus  be 
given  to  the  extension  of  equipment  and  en- 
richment of  the  soil  so  necessary  to  intensive 
cultivation.  In  addition  there  would  be  com- 
plete justice  in  the  incidence  of  taxation.  The 
land  would  become  a  series  of  sites  for  carry- 
ing on  agricultural  industry  much  in  the  man- 
ner of  other  industrial  sites.  Everyone  is 
aware  that  the  site  value  reflected  in  high  or 
low  rent  depends  upon  situation  and  communi- 
cation. The  small  holding  near  a  market  and 
with  easy  communication  naturally  fetches  a 
higher  rent  than  one  farther  removed,  and  this 
rental  value  would  merely  be  transformed  into 
tax  value.  In  other  words,  the  holder  who 
is  far  from  market  and  reaches  it  with  diffi- 
culty is  compensated  by  having  to  pay  a  lower 


76         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

rental  or,  under  the  new  plan,  a  lower  tax. 
From  now  on,  Mr.  Fels  devoted  his  energies  to 
bringing  about  this  great  reform. 

His  exertions  in  the  interest  of  land  taxa- 
tion cannot  be  described  as  merely  the  out- 
come of  his  acceptance  of  Henry  George's 
principles.  He  was  acquainted  with  them  and 
was  convinced  that  they  were  sound  many  years 
before  he  threw  himself  and  his  resources  into 
their  service.  His  early  period  of  activity  in 
England  was  inspired  by  other  motives  than 
his  desire  to  establish  land  taxation,  this  seem- 
ing too  remote  and  difficult  of  achievement  for 
one  who  wished  to  see  concrete  results  grow- 
ing, however  slowly,  under  his  hand.  It  was 
that  his  problems,  at  first  disconnected  from 
land  taxation,  led  him,  chiefly  through  the  fail- 
ure of  his  efforts,  to  conclude  that  social  re- 
form is  a  hopeless  struggle  against  conditions 
that  hamper  and  balk  and  kill,  and  that  these 
conditions  grow  out  of  and  center  in  the  pri- 
vate and  privileged  possession  of  land.  In  the 
early  days,  like  most  others,  he  saw  land  mo-, 
nopoly  and  its  remedy  as  a  thing  apart,  for 
.Utopian  contemplation  rather  than  for  every- 


WHY  SMALL  HOLDINGS  FAIL          77 

day  work.  But  ten  years'  struggle  to  achieve 
other  reforms  taught  him  that  the  curse  of 
privilege  intrenched  in  the  ownership  of  land 
had  thrust  its  tentacles  into  every  part  of  the 
social  order,  and  was  ever  ready  to  strangle 
efforts  toward  a  cleaner  and  juster  civiliza- 
tion. 


E 


VII 
Political  Interests 

VERY  man   of  wealth   who   desires   to 


achieve  something  in  the  direction  of  so- 
cial betterment  finds  his  chief  difficulty  to  be 
the  practical  one  of  making  personal  adjust- 
ments. There  is  the  ever  present  army  of 
sycophants;  there  is  a  multitude  with  ideas  of 
greater  or  less  value  that  make  their  appeal  to 
be  supported  and  set  going;  and  there  is  the 
ever  present  spectacle  of  human  suffering  to 
be  alleviated.  The  path  of  least  resistance  is 
undoubtedly  to  join  the  brigade  of  philan- 
thropists. Charity  provides  a  means  of  spend- 
ing unlimited  money  without  responsibility. 
Its  activities  are  systematized.  It  is  a  certain 
road  to  respectability  and  a  crown  of  glory. 
Some  strength  of  character  is  needed  to  resist 
the  personal  insistence  as  well  as  the  inherent 
temptation  to  sink  one's  self  in  the  dissipation 
of  giving.  For  Mr.  Fels,  palliation  and  tink- 

78 


POLITICAL  INTERESTS  79 

ering  were  not  enough.  He  conceived  it  to 
be  a  fundamentally  mistaken  policy  to  use  the 
surplus  good  of  each  generation  to  repair  the 
wastage  that  it  wrought.  His  ambition  was 
to  make  unnecessary  the  activities  of  charity 
which  in  course  of  time  he  came  to  hate.  They 
left,  he  was  accustomed  to  say,  nothing  but  evil 
on  both  sides.  "I  hate  to  give,"  he  told  an 
audience  once,  "and  most  men  are  ashamed  to 
receive  as  long  as  charity  allows  them  to  re- 
main men."  Here  was  a  fundamental  count  in 
the  indictment.  Charity  cut  at  the  root  of  that 
personal  initiative  and  independence  which 
constitute  the  very  essence  of  manhood. 

Motives  such  as  these  impelled  Mr.  Fels 
to  turn  away  from  charity  as  inadequate,  and 
to  keep  himself  from  the  personal  importunity 
which  engulfs  those  who  resign  themselves  to 
the  philanthropic  life.  He  soon  perceived  that 
it  was  in  the  political  field  and  through  politi- 
cal agencies  that  his  cause  must  advance.  He 
determined,  therefore,  to  put  his  financial  re- 
sources and  his  personal  services  into  the  effort 
to  place  the  taxation  of  land  values  upon  the 
statute  book.  He  was  naturally  compelled  to 


80         JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

establish  relations  with  his  fellow  workers,  to 
assist  and  extend  existing  agencies,  and  gen- 
erally to  seek  for  means  of  bringing  his  re- 
form more  fully  into  the  field  of  public  discus- 
sion and  political  action.  His  relation  with 
the  United  Committee  for  the  Taxation  of 
Land  Values  was  always  close,  and  this  group 
of  able  and  devoted  men  could  always  count  on 
his  unstinted  help.  The  members  of  Parlia- 
ment who  were  advocates  of  the  reform  were 
his  friends.  They  were  affiliated  to  the  Liberal 
Party  and,  of  course,  pledged  to  the  general 
aims  of  Liberal  policy.  The  United  Com- 
mittee has  always  believed  that  their  reform 
would  be  brought  about  only  after  being  in- 
tegrated to  Liberal  plans,  with  the  consequence 
that  its  advocacy  has  had  to  remain  secondary 
to  the  more  general  party  intentions.  That 
this  affiliation  has  served  some  useful  purpose 
no  one  can  doubt.  But  it  was  hardly  consist- 
ent with  Mr.  Fels'  character  and  methods  to 
allow  what  he  conceived  to  be  a  matter  of  prime 
importance  to  be  kept  in  abeyance  until  the 
scope  of  Liberal  policy  might  be  sufficiently 
extended  to  include  it  at  some  remote  future 


POLITICAL  INTERESTS  81 

date.  He  did  not,  therefore,  join  the  Liberal 
ranks.  His  discernment  had  been  too  well 
trained  in  business  affairs  not  to  make  it  clear 
to  him  that  Liberal  policy  would  give  no  large 
place  to  the  taxation  of  land  values.  It 
formed  an  instrument  of  tremendous  effective- 
ness in  the  fight  with  the  Lords,  but  Liberals 
were  interested  in  it  only  as  a  means  of  war. 
If  the  cause  had  been  put  on  its  own  merits, 
what  was  at  that  time  only  smoldering  rebel- 
lion would  have  risen  to  the  point  of  open  re- 
pudiation. It  was  clear  to  Mr.  Fels  that  by 
land  reform  the  Liberal  politicians  did  not 
mean  what  he  meant.  It  might  be  very  well 
to  fight  the  Conservatives,  pre-eminently  the 
party  of  landlords,  but  as  soon  as  the  fruits 
of  the  new  land  policy  should  begin  to  show 
themselves  in  the  world  of  industry,  the  mag- 
nates who  constitute  the  backbone  of  liberalism 
would  give  it  their  unflinching  opposition. 

These  considerations  led  Mr.  Fels  to  turn 
always  more  hopefully  to  the  cause  of  labor. 
Here  were  the  people  who  held  his  sympathy 
and  whom  he  desired  chiefly  to  benefit.  Only 
the  workers  would  find  it  to  their  interest  to 


82         JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

carry  through  the  reform  in  its  full  and  effec- 
tive measure.  It  might  take  long  for  the 
common  people  to  see  the  advantage  of  land 
reform,  but  they  in  the  end  would  find  it  their 
most  certain  means  to  the  attainment  of  free- 
dom and  justice.  Mr.  Fels,  therefore,  worked 
in  the  interest  of  the  Labor  Party,  and  there 
were  few  contests  in  which  the  Labor  candidate 
did  not  have  the  advantage  of  his  helping  hand. 

But  there  were,  and  are,  many  difficulties 
in  the  way.  The  working  man,  however  in- 
telligent, who  has  been  bred  to  town  life,  who 
by  apprenticeship  or  otherwise  has  been  trained 
into  exercise  of  a  particular  craft,  is  unable 
to  see  at  first  view  how  land  reform  can  solve 
his  special  problem,  that  problem  being  the 
simple  one  of  securing  a  due  proportion  of  the 
earnings  of  the  industry  in  which  he  partici- 
pates. 

It  seems  to  him  a  matter  that  lies  between 
himself  and  the  capitalist  who  employs  him. 
About  this  central  question  group  the  minor 
ones  pertaining  to  the  conditions  of  labor.  He 
joins  his  fellow- workmen  in  order  to  bring 
united  action  to  bear  upon  the  employer.  His 


POLITICAL  INTERESTS  83 

ultimate  recourse  is  the  strike  which  periodic- 
ally faces  the  employer  with  the  alternative  of 
advancing  wages  or  seeing  his  employees  leave 
their  work  in  a  body.  This  seems  to  be  the  es- 
sential purpose  of  trade  unionism.  The  prac- 
tice of  Mr.  Fels'  own  firm  as  large  employers 
of  labor,  had  been  to  advance  wages  to  as  high 
a  point  as  possible  on  their  own  initiative,  be- 
cause they  found  it  to  be  good  business  policy. 
He  knew  that  any  struggle  over  wages  was 
for  the  workers  an  unequal  and  losing  one. 
However  much  the  employer  may  suffer,  he  is 
nearly  always  in  a  better  position  to  carry  on 
a  protracted  conflict  than  his  laborers  who,  in 
most  cases,  have  few  resources  and  can  only 
undertake  a  strike  at  the  risk  of  the  most  ter- 
rible consequences.  Mr.  Fels  knew  also  that, 
union  or  no  union,  so  long  as  the  labor  market 
carries  a  large  surplus,  wages  can  be  held  al- 
most at  the  limit  of  subsistence.  Whatever 
might  or  should  be,  the  price  of  labor  is  in  fact 
determined,  like  that  of  other  commodities, 
by  the  supply  on  the  market.  If  the  supply 
can  be  reduced,  the  demand  and  therefore  the 
price,  will  rise  just  as  with  coal,  corn  or  any- 


84        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

thing  else.  It  is  well  known  that  the  suppres- 
sion of  any  industry  will  throw  those  who  prac- 
tice it  into  other  channels.  The  suppression 
of  agriculture  carried  on  continuously  over 
nearly  a  century  has  moved  the  country  popu- 
lation to  the  town,  and  given  a  steady  stream 
of  applicants  for  industrial  occupations.  How 
can  the  tide  be  set  the  other  way,  and  what 
would  be  its  consequences?  'Agriculture,  in 
countries  where  the  common  people  prosper, 
is  not  merely  one  occupation  amongst  many 
others,  but  the  great  alternative  to  all  industry. 
Let  the  conditions  for  its  practice  be  advan- 
tageous as  compared  with  the  trades,  let  the 
land  demand  workers  and  pay  them  adequately 
for  their  work.  The  consequence  would  be 
seen  immediately  in  the  withdrawal  of  the  la- 
bor surplus  in  the  industrial  market,  and  that 
desirable  state  of  affairs  would  be  reached  in 
which  employers  would  compete  for  laborers, 
instead  of  laborers  competing  for  the  privilege 
of  obtaining  a  job  at  rates  that  barely  keep 
them  and  their  families  from  the  verge  of 
starvation.  Moreover,  the  taxation  of  land 
values  would  relieve  the  working  population  of 


POLITICAL  INTERESTS  85 

that  unfair  incidence  of  rates  and  taxes  which 
under  the  existing  system  they  have  to  bear. 

The  way  in  which  adjustment  as  between 
agricultural  and  industrial  pursuits  would  take 
place  is  precisely  the  same  as  is  found  in  the 
adjustment  of  the  trades.  When  a  young  man 
is  faced  with  the  necessity  of  choosing  a  means 
of  livelihood,  his  choice  is  determined  partly 
by  inclination,  partly  by  opportunity,  but  in 
the  main  by  the  economic  advantage  which  one 
trade  manifests  as  compared  with  the  others. 
There  is  a  perpetual  selection  going  on  of  men 
by  trades  so  that  the  benefits  are  equalized  by 
reason  of  numbers  entering.  Agriculture 
would,  therefore,  not  only  stop  the  constant 
migration  from  country  to  town  to  swell  the 
ranks  of  industry,  but  if  permitted  to  exercise 
the  advantages  and  attractions  that  belong  to 
it,  would  undoubtedly  produce  a  current  in 
the  opposite  direction  and  reduce  the  supply 
of  labor. 

But  a  more  important  difficulty  that  Mr. 
Fels  had  to  face  in  endeavoring  to  secure  the 
assent  of  the  laboring  world  to  his  reform,  was 
due  to  the  fact  that  the  laboring  world  had  to 


86         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

a  large  extent  committed  itself  to  the  tenets  of 
socialism.  One  of  the  chief  of  these  is  the 
nationalization  of  land,  which  naturally  pre- 
sents itself  as  an  alternative  reform.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  that  reformers  in  so  many  cases 
keep  their  ideas  within  a  closed  system  of  prin- 
ciples, thus  preventing  co-operation  in  practi- 
cal political  activity;  and  it  must  be  said  that 
many  socialists  would  rather  sit  still  contem- 
plating the  joys  and  the  advantages  of  a  so- 
cialist state  that  is  to  spring  full-fledged  out 
of  a  moment's  intervening  revolution,  than  set 
themselves  laboriously,  little  by  little,  to  shape 
the  trend  of  social  evolution.  Mr.  Fels,  al- 
ways practically  bent  and  basing  his  program 
on  existing  conditions,  was  unable  to  give  his 
assent  to  those  proposals  which  involved  state 
ownership  of  all  industry  and  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  land  by  legislation  or  purchase.  These 
matters  might  be  supremely  desirable  of  them- 
selves, but  appeared  to  him  out  of  the  range  of 
possible  achievement  in  the  first  case,  and  al- 
together undesirable  in  the  case  of  the  land. 
The  socialistic  principle  as  applied  to  the  great 
public  services  of  distribution  and  communica- 


POLITICAL  INTERESTS  87 

tion  had  his  complete  support.  He  conceived 
the  object  of  revenue  to  be  the  extension  and 
betterment  of  such  services,  and  saw  also  that 
these  services  were  the  instruments  that  con- 
ferred value  in  a  great  degree  upon  the  land. 
It  was  with  reference  to  the  socialization  of 
these  land  values  as  the  source  of  revenue  for 
the  public  services  that  differences  arose.  He 
endeavored  to  make  his  socialist  friends  see  that 
whereas  the  confiscation  of  land  by  legisla- 
tion was  impracticable,  and  whereas  acquisi- 
tion by  purchase  Would  throw  an  intolerable 
burden  upon  the  people,  the  taxation  of  land 
values  would  accomplish  what  they  wanted, 
and  possess  the  superior  advantage  of  being 
within  the  sphere  of  practical  politics.  More- 
over, it  is  not  clear  that  nationalized  land  would 
provide  the  remedy  for  present  day  evils. 
There  must  in  the  last  analysis  be  individual 
tenure  of  some  kind,  and  the  state  as  ultimate 
landlord  may  not  prevent  the  existence  of  a 
host  of  sub-landlords  who  would  exploit  rental 
values  more  or  less  as  at  present.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand  why  socialists  have  not 
adopted  the  taxation  of  land  values  as  a  prac- 


88        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

tical  and  certain  method  of  bringing  about  what 
they  desire.  Once  the  whole  of  ground  rental 
is  secured  to  the  state,  it  is  obvious  that  owner- 
ship is  merely  a  matter  of  words,  while  tenure 
and  use  must  be  provided  for  in  any  case. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing,  Mr.  Fels 
could  see  that  full  utilization  of  the  land  would 
go  far  toward  the  abolition  of  industry  for 
profit,  which  lies  at  the  heart  of  the  socialist 
contention.  There  is  a  distinction  in  the  capi- 
tal employed  in  industry  not  sufficiently  taken 
into  account.  It  is  a  simple  distinction  be- 
tween debenture  and  preferred  stock,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  common  share  issues  on  the 
other.  Everyone  knows  that  the  initiatory  and 
working  provision  for  a  new  industry  is  sup- 
plied as  capital  bearing  a  fixed  charge  and  con- 
stituting a  mortgage  on  the  business.  This 
supply  is  necessary  whoever  owns  the  business, 
state  or  individual,  and  it  would  have  to  bear 
a  charge  either  as  interest  or  sinking  fund  for 
redemption.  Exploitation  for  profit  comes  in 
connection  with  that  large  world  of  common 
share  issues,  the  home  of  promoters  and  job- 
bers, in  which  values  are  capitalized  dividends, 


POLITICAL  INTERESTS  89 

and  which  is  firmly  established  upon  the  backs 
of  the  toilers.  If  it  is  admitted  that  the  pro- 
ceeds of  any  industry  should  go  as  reward  to 
those  who  supply  the  actual  and  legitimate 
capital,  and  to  the  workers  who  carry  it  on, 
then  clearly  there  is  no  room  for  fluctuating 
share  values.  The  greater  part  of  the  City 
of  London  would  be  in  search  of  means  of  live- 
lihood. The  difficulty  is  that  the  worker  has 
no  way  of  collecting  his  proportion.  He  does 
not  even  trouble  to  understand  that  while  he 
toils  for  his  sovereign  per  week,  the  well  dressed 
individual  whom  he  sees  on  his  way  to  the  city 
and  for  whom  he  feels  so  much  respect,  has 
merely  pocketed  the  other  sovereign  that  he, 
the  worker,  has  earned.  The  problem  after 
all  is  simply  how  to  place  the  laborer  in  a  posi- 
tion to  collect  the  due  return  of  his  labor.  An- 
tecedent to  the  millennium,  there  appears  to  be 
only  one  way,  namely,  to  make  him  free  to  give 
his  services  to,  or  withdraw  them  from,  any  em- 
ployer. When  the  owners  of  land  clamor  for 
men  to  help  them  earn  the  rent  which  the  state 
inexorably  collects,  the  workers  will  have 
achieved  their  freedom. 


VIII 

Home  Colonization 

TN  the  winter  of  1905,  the  late  General  Booth, 
•••  appalled  by  the  degree  of  unemployment 
then  existing,  came  to  the  conclusion  that  only 
in  emigration  was  a  remedy  to  be  found.  He 
proposed  therefore  to  raise  a  fund  by  means 
of  which  five  thousand  families  should  be  as- 
sisted to  emigrate  to  Australia.  He  was  con- 
vinced that  it  lay  in  his  power  to  send  out  the 
type  of  settler  of  which  he  believed  the  colony 
to  stand  in  need.  Mr.  Fels  emphatically  dis- 
agreed with  this  suggestion.  He  was  not  con- 
vinced, in  the  first  place,  that  work  was  to  be 
had  in  Australia.  He  doubted  very  seriously 
whether  "assisted"  emigration  of  the  type  sug- 
gested by  General  Booth  would  result  in  the 
choice  of  fit  persons ;  and  above  all  he  felt  cer- 
tain that  there  was  room  and  to  spare  in  Eng- 
land for  the  proposed  emigrants.  With  this 

thought  in  mind  he  made  an  offer  through  the 

BO 


HOME  COLONIZATION  91 

press  to  the  British  Government.  It  was  in 
the  following  terms: 

"I  am  informed  that,  probably  encouraged 
by  Mr.  Rider  Haggard's  report  to  the  Gov- 
ernment on  the  success  of  Salvation  Army  col- 
onies in  South  America,  General  Booth  has  of- 
fered to  settle  some  1500  families  on  land  in 
the  Colonies,  if  the  Government  will  provide, 
say,  £300,000  for  that  purpose. 

"I  believe  England's  own  home  land  will 
support  her  present  population  and  she  should 
not  allow  some  of  her  best  blood  to  leave  her 
shores  by  assisted  emigration.  There  can  be 
no  objection  to  voluntary  emigration. 

"If  General  Booth's  scheme  is  really  to  set- 
tle 1500  families  in  the  Colonies  and  if  he  makes 
the  proviso  that  the  Government  shall  assist 
him  in  his  undertaking  to  the  extent  of  <£300,- 
000,  I  am  quite  sure  that  better  results  can  be 
obtained  with  a  like  amount  of  money  without 
so  large  a  proportion  of  the  money  being  un- 
productively  paid  over  to  transportation  com- 
panies or  in  commissions  to  land  and  other 
agents. 

''Bearing  these  points  in  mind,  I  would 


92         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

gladly  be  one  of  twenty  to  guarantee  the  set- 
tling— right  here  in  Great  Britain — on  home 
land,  of  the  same  number  of  families  with  the 
same  assistance  from  Government.  If  nine- 
teen others  cannot  be  found  to  join  me,  I  shall 
still  be  prepared  to  act  alone  to  the  extent  of 
my  proportion. 

"Inasmuch  as  there  is  a  hitch  in  connection 
with  General  Booth's  scheme  which  will  prob- 
ably ultimately  cause  it  to  be  entirely  dropped, 
the  present  seems  an  opportune  moment  for 
carrying  out  home  colonization.  During  the 
last  fifty  years  the  number  of  persons  em- 
ployed upon  the  land  in  this  country  has  de- 
creased by  some  one  and  a  quarter  millions, 
whilst  there  is  no  evidence  to  show  that  the 
quality  of  the  land  or  the  conditions  of  the 
climate  are  responsible  for  this  great  falling 
off. 

"Experiments  made  by  private  land  own- 
ers and  public  authorities  prove  conclusively 
that,  under  a  system  of  small  holdings,  with 
absolute  security  of  tenure  for  the  cultivator, 
farming  is  still  a  profitable  occupation.  The 
Vale  of  Evesham,  Worcester,  is  somewhat  of 


HOME  COLONIZATION  93 

an  object  lesson  in  this  direction,  there  being 
thousands  of  acres  in  small  holdings,  though 
conditions  are  not  nearly  what  they  should  be 
in  respect  of  permanence  of  tenure  or  of  oc- 
cupation. 

"The  public  does  not  know  that  there  is 
about  the  same  percentage  of  unemployed  in 
most  of  the  Colonies  as  in  the  mother  country. 
It  may  also  not  be  aware  that  the  United 
States  is  not  a  Mecca  for  the  unemployed  and 
the  moneyless. 

"In  addition  to  agriculture  which  has  been 
so  much  neglected  of  late  years  in  Great  Brit- 
ain for  reasons  which  must  be  obvious  to  most 
thinking  people,  there  is  the  question  of  af- 
forestation. A  Royal  Commission  has  shown 
that  there  are  in  Great  Britain  some  twenty 
million  acres  of  absolutely  waste  land  capable 
of  being  put  under  timber.  Not  less  than  one 
hundred  thousand  adults  representing  a  popu- 
lation of  (say)  half  a  million  people,  would 
find  profitable  and  healthy  employment  in  this 
class  of  industry. 

"The  state  forests  of  Germany  bring  in  an 
average  of  about  eighteen  million  pounds  to 


94        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

the  national  exchequer ;  Great  Britain  imports 
timber  to  the  value  of  over  forty  million 
pounds,  a  great  proportion  of  which  could  and 
should  be  grown  on  home  land." 

It  was  but  a  nine  days'  wonder.  General 
Booth's  scheme  was,  as  he  had  foreshadowed, 
already  doomed  owing  to  great  divergence  of 
Australian  opinion  as  to  its  merits.  The  press 
loudly  acclaimed  Mr.  Fels'  generosity,  articles 
were  written  about  his  public  spirit,  the  usual 
notices  were  contributed  on  the  possibilities  of 
afforestation;  in  prospect  indeed  the  money 
was  spent  over  and  over  again.  One  com- 
ment on  the  plan,  that  of  the  Star,  is  worth 
preserving  because  it  shows  so  real  an  apprecia- 
tion of  Mr.  Pels'  object.  Its  editor  com- 
mented on  the  plan  as  follows:  (Issue  of  Oc- 
tober 18,  1905.) 

Mr.  Joseph  Fels  comes  forward  with  a  practical 
proposal  for  the  restoration  of  the  manless  land  to 
the  landless  man.  If  the  Government  will  grant  a 
sum  of  £300,000,  he  will  make  one  of  twenty  to  guar- 
antee the  settling  of  fifteen  hundred  families  in  this 
country.  If  nineteen  others  cannot  be  found  to  join 
him,  he  is  prepared  to  act  alone  to  the  extent  of  his 
proportion.  We  need  not  say  that  we  heartily  wel- 
come Mr.  Fels'  patriotic  offer.  We  hope  he  will  get 


HOME  COLONIZATION  95 

his  nineteen  partners  in  double  quick  time.  Surely 
there  are  nineteen  men  who  are  willing  to  save  Eng- 
land from  the  fate  of  Ireland,  to  stop  the  torrent  of 
emigration  which  is  draining  her  life  blood.  We 
have  often  been  called  "Little  Englanders"  because 
we  refuse  to  treat  these  islands  as  a  mere  parish,  and 
because  we  hold  that  the  health  of  the  outer  empire 
depends  upon  our  heart  beats.  That  is  why  we  sup- 
ported Mr.  Jesse  Ceilings  in  his  opposition  to  Gen- 
eral Booth's  scheme  for  deporting  five  thousand  stal- 
wart Englishmen  to  Australia.  We  are  convinced 
that  there  is  plenty  of  land  at  home  for  the  strong 
man,  if  only  the  barriers  between  him  and  the  land 
are  leveled.  During  the  last  fifty  years,  as  Mr.  Fels 
points  out,  the  number  of  persons  employed  upon  the 
land  has  decreased  by  a  million  and  a  half.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  scientific  farmer,  employ- 
ing modern  methods,  can  hold  his  own  against  the 
world.  But  he  must  be  delivered  from  the  fetters 
which  our  obsolete  land  laws  have  riveted  upon  his 
enterprise.  It  is  time  to  call  our  great  landlords  to 
give  an  account  of  their  stewardship.  There  can  be 
no  radical  reform  without  compulsion.  The  state 
must  recover  the  land  for  the  people. 

It  is,  of  course,  more  picturesque  to  ship  our  bone 
and  sinew  off  to  Canada,  Australia  and  New  Zealand. 
But  it  is  a  fact  not  generally  known  that  the  percent- 
age of  unemployed  in  most  of  the  Colonies  is  as  high 
as  it  is  here.  The  state  of  South  Africa  at  this  mo- 
ment is  deplorable.  Thousands  of  white  men  are 
walking  in  gloomy  despair  about  the  streets  of  Cape 
Town  and  Johannesburg.  We  hear  a  great  deal 
about  the  successful  emigrants  but  of  the  dismal  fail- 


96        JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

ures  we  hear  less.  There  are  plenty  of  young  men 
who  curse  the  day  when  they  left  England.  Yet, 
take  it  all  in  all,  we  do  not  believe  there  is  a  finer 
country  in  the  world  for  the  honest,  steady  and 
strenuous  man  than  this  England  of  ours.  We  ought 
to  rediscover  its  unknown  rural  charms,  and  to  re- 
populate  its  desolate  acres.  The  cult  of  the  coun- 
try, which  the  bicycle  and  the  motor  have  revived, 
ought  to  make  the  task  of  manning  the  land  an  easy 
one.  ...  If  some  part  of  the  millions  which  our  im- 
perialists waste  on  barren  war  were  spent  on  affores- 
tation and  land  nationalization,  England  would  be 
happier  and  stronger.  What  did  we  get  for  the  two 
hundred  and  fifty  million  pounds  squandered  in  the 
South  African  War?  We  provided  work  under  de- 
grading conditions  for  forty-five  thousand  China- 
men. We  established  an  oligarchy  of  landlords. 
Why  not,  in  future,  spend  our  millions  at  home  for 
the  benefit  of  our  own  people  ? 

Mr.  Fels  heartily  welcomed  so  spirited  an 
appeal.  He  urged  everywhere  the  justifica- 
tion of  an  immediate  experiment.  No  coun- 
try, he  wrote,  could  be  truly  prosperous  where 
the  "submerged"  population  formed  a  large 
percentage  of  the  people.  The  endurance  and 
vitality  of  England  must,  sooner  or  later,  be 
seriously  threatened  if  there  grew  up  a  per- 
manently unemployed  class.  If  competition 
were  so  to  operate  that  the  worker  thrown  out 


HOME  COLONIZATION  97 

of  employment  found  it  impossible  to  recover 
the  means  of  livelihood,  any  real  sentiment  of 
patriotism  became  impossible. 

Such  was  his  plea.  But  beyond  the  de- 
mands of  the  press  that  attention  be  devoted 
to  his  plan,  nothing  was  done.  So  far  as  can 
be  discovered,  no  seconder  of  his  offer  ap- 
peared. The  rich  classes  were  clearly  apa- 
thetic. Of  Government  action  of  any  kind 
we  are  ignorant.  It  is  possible  that  the  plan, 
like  that  of  General  Booth,  was  referred  to 
the  ministerial  committee  on  agricultural  set- 
tlements in  the  Colonies;  perhaps  in  the  last 
month  of  Mr.  Balfour's  administration  no  time 
could  be  spared  from  the  all  important  task  of 
saving  his  ministry  from  the  destruction  to 
which  it  appeared  doomed.  Certainly  Mr. 
Walter  Long  failed  to  give  this  experiment  the 
thoughtful  consideration  he  had  devoted  to  the 
farm  labor  colonies.  Mr.  Fels,  not  unnatur- 
ally, was  keenly  disappointed.  The  need  was 
clear,  conditions  were  urgent.  Continental  ex- 
periment and  analogy  justified  high  hopes  for 
the  success  of  a  well  executed  plan  of  home 
colonization.  The  existence  of  a  real  land  him- 


98         JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

ger  had  been  many  times  demonstrated;  that 
industrial  workers  could  be  made  into  useful 
agriculturists  Mr.  Fels  himself  had  shown.  If 
landlords  cared  nothing  for  his  plan,  some- 
thing was  seriously  wrong  with  the  landlords. 
Here,  as  in  all  his  other  endeavors,  he  came 
face  to  face  with  the  same  intolerable  barrier 
to  progress. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  Mr. 
Fels'  work  in  connection  with  the  cultivation 
of  vacant  lots  in  Philadelphia.  In  1904  he 
conceived  the  idea  of  starting  a  society  in  Lon- 
don with  the  same  object.  He  went  over  Lon- 
don seeking  the  co-operation  of  men  and 
women  whose  help  seemed  likely  to  be  of  serv- 
ice, and  by  the  end  of  the  year  an  association, 
with  a  committee  to  which  such  men  as  Mr. 
Percy  Alden,  Professor  Patrick  Geddes,  Mr. 
George  Lansbury  and  Mr.  Israel  Zangwill 
gave  their  assistance,  was  formed.  Mr.  Fels 
himself  acted  as  secretary  of  the  enterprise. 
The  society  had  objects  more  or  less  similiar 
to  those  of  its  American  parent.  The  tempo- 
rary loan  of  unused  land  was  to  be  obtained 


HOME  COLONIZATION  99 

from  every  possible  source.  This  land  was  to 
be  prepared  during  the  winter  for  cultivation, 
thus  providing,  in  some  degree  at  any  rate,  a 
source  of  constructive  work  for  the  unem- 
ployed. The  land  so  prepared  was  to  be  let 
either  free  or  at  a  nominal  rent  to  approved 
applicants,  the  preference  being  given  to  those 
with  families.  Tools  and  seeds  were  to  be  pro- 
vided either  free,  or  at  cost  price,  and  practi- 
cal instruction  was  to  be  given  wherever  neces- 
sary. 

A  beginning  had  already  been  made  when 
the  society  was  organized  with  land  lent  by  the 
Bromley  Gas  Light  and  Coke  Company  in 
West  Ham.  This  was  a  dreary-looking  tract 
situated  in  the  most  desolate  region  of  East 
London.  It  had  once  been  a  fertile  market 
garden  famous  for  the  production  of  celery. 
It  was  now  covered  with  twitch  which  flour- 
ished and  killed  every  other  plant.  In  a  few 
months  twenty-five  acres  of  this  desert  were 
transformed  into  flourishing  vegetable  gar- 
dens. The  heavy  labor  of  preparing  their  al- 
lotments fell  mostly  upon  the  applicants  them- 
selves and  provided  a  serious  test  of  their  in- 


100      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

terest  and  perseverance.  The  result  of  the 
first  season's  working  was  a  return  of  about 
forty  pounds  per  acre,  which  meant  that  the 
holders  of  even  a  few  rods  had  gone  far  to- 
ward the  maintenance  of  themselves  and  fam- 
ilies. The  success  of  this  first  effort  strength- 
ened the  society  in  approaching  public  authori- 
ties and  private  owners.  The  London  County 
Council  placed  at  its  disposal  several  pieces  of 
unused  land  and  the  work  was  extended  in 
Fulham  and  other  sections.  The  Gas  Light 
and  Coke  Company  gave  the  use  of  seven 
acres,  also  situated  in  Fulham,  which  was  al- 
lotted to  fifty-six  men,  each  of  whom  held  an 
average  plot  of  twenty  square  rods.  There 
was  no  example  of  failure  and  the  more  seri- 
ous mistakes  were  avoided  through  the  effi- 
cient superintendence  of  Mr.  R.  L.  Castle  who 
had  been  gardener  to  the  Duke  of  Bedford. 
The  rules  adopted  in  connection  with  the  Ful- 
ham tract  will  illustrate  the  general  method: 

1.  The  plots  of  land,  twenty  square  rods  in 
extent,  are  let  to  partially  employed  men  by 
the  above  society,  free  of  rent,  rates  and  taxes. 

2.  In  the  event  of  the  land  being  required 


HOME  COLONIZATION  101 

by  the  owners,  the  longest  possible  notice  will 
be  given  to  the  men  for  the  removal  of  their 
crops. 

3.  If  a  man  subsequently  obtains  full  em- 
ployment which  does  not  permit  him  to  give 
the  necessary  time  to  the  cultivation  of  his  plot, 
notice  must  be  given  to  the  superintendent  who 
will  arrange  for  another  man  to  take  over  the 
plot  and  crops  upon  fair  terms. 

4.  The    plots    must    be    cultivated    and 
cropped  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  superintend- 
ent who  will  give  all  the  instruction  required. 
For  the  first  digging,  and  for  wheeling  on  to 
the  land  the  apportioned  manure,  supplied  free 
by  the  society,  ten  and  sixpence  per  plot  will 
be  paid  to  the  men  on  the  completion  of  the 
work. 

5.  Each  man  must  remove  all  rubbish  as 
directed,  and  keep  his  own  paths  clean. 

6.  The  crops  may  be  sold  or  used  by  each 
grower  as  he  prefers,  but  he  must  report  the 
quantities  as  removed  to  the  superintendent. 
The  plot  holders  would,  however,  greatly  as- 
sist if  they  keep  a  record  of  all  crops  grown, 
and  an  account  of  all  moneys  received  for  sales 


102       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

of  produce.  This  information  is  required  by 
the  society  to  enable  them  to  make  out  their 
yearly  report. 

7.  Seeds  or  plants  purchased  and  supplied 
by  the  society  will  be  charged  to  the  men  at 
cost  price,  but  the  amount  can  be  paid  when 
the  first  crops  are  used  or  sold. 

8.  Work  on  Sundays  should  be  completed 
by  ten  a.  m. 

9.  The  men  are  expected  to  behave  hon- 
orably with  regard  to  their  neighbors'  crops 
and  to  take  all  possible  care  of  the  tools  sup- 
plied which  must  be  returned  to  the  shed  every 
day  in  a  clean  state. 

10.  A  deposit  of  sixpence  will  be  required 
for  each  key  supplied,  and  this  deposit  will  be 
returned  when  the  men  give  up  the  keys  and 
plots. 

11.  Misconduct  or  wilful  neglect  will  sub- 
ject a  holder  to  the  loss  of  his  plot  and  crops. 

Within  six  months  after  the  London  So- 
ciety's origin,  it  had  given  birth  to  similar  so- 
cieties in  Edinburgh,  Belfast,  Middlesboro  and 
Dublin.  Wherever  an  invitation  to  explain 
the  scheme  was  forthcoming,  Mr.  Fels  threw 


HOME  COLONIZATION  103 

other  work  aside  to  go.  By  the  end  of  the 
first  year  the  London  Society  had  two  hundred 
and  fifty  men  at  work  on  its  plots,  and  had 
many  more  applications  for  land.  Ninety  per 
cent,  of  the  men  were  successful  in  their  ex- 
periment, and  the  average  yield  per  acre  ex- 
ceeded forty  pounds.  Nothing  handicapped 
the  Society  except  the  lack  of  land,  and  the 
characteristic  refusal  on  the  part  of  Mr.  John 
Burns  to  grant  a  loan  of  money  for  clearing 
the  land  let  by  the  public  authorities  of  Lon- 
don. When  it  is  remembered  that  the  income 
of  the  Society  barely  exceeded  five  hundred 
pounds,  the  measure  of  its  success  will  be  in 
some  degree  realized.  The  Society  has  just 
received  a  grant  from  the  government,  and 
with  the  greater  need  of  cultivating  unused 
lands  created  by  the  present  war,  it  may  well 
have  a  large  field  of  usefulness*. 


A 


IX 

The  Methods  of  Monopoly 

S  has  been  seen,  it  was  clear  to  Mr.  Fels 
that  there  was  no  necessary  conflict  be- 
tween legitimate  capital,  that  is,  capital  des- 
tined for  actual  use  in  the  provision  of  equip- 
ment, and  the  labor  necessary  to  make  use  of 
it.  It  was  equally  clear  that  profits  could  be 
derived  from  illegitimate  capital,  simply  be- 
cause some  mode  of  constraint  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  choice  of  workers  which  forced 
them  to  lower  their  margin  and  sell  their  labor 
cheaply.  His  concern  was  to  discover  the 
origin  of  this  constraint  and  he  found  it  in  the 
conditions  which  make  agriculture  unattrac- 
tive and  unprofitable,  conditions  associated 
.with  the  private  ownership  of  land  used  for  the 
exploitation  of  rental  values.  His  further 
thinking  led  him  to  an  understanding  of  mo- 
nopoly in  general  and  how  it  always  serves  to 

104 


THE  METHODS  OF  MONOPOLY       105 

keep  labor  in  servitude,  and  seize  upon  a  por- 
tion of  its  due  return.  The  same  forces  that 
exploit  labor  exploit  the  consumer  of  commodi- 
ties in  so  far  as  this  is  possible.  The  consum- 
er's only  protection  lies  in  the  perfectly  free 
play  of  all  the  activities  of  production  and  ex- 
change, which  is  known  as  competition.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  how  the  economic  world  could 
keep  itself  going  among  a  people  with  even 
a  semblance  of  freedom  without  that  determi- 
nation of  values  which  commodities  find  on  the 
market  under  competitive  conditions.  There 
is  no  other  way  in  which  any  one  of  the  indefi- 
nitely divided  and  specialized  functions  of  pro- 
duction can  automatically  find  its  place.  The 
simple  question  in  any  business  activity,  "Does 
it  pay?"  means  that  in  the  totality  all  func- 
tions are  limiting  and  corrective. 

But  there  are  elements  in  every  business 
which  strive  to  make  a  commodity  pay  more 
than  its  actual  value,  to  intervene  in  what  may 
be  considered  the  natural  economic  process  and 
so  restrain  it  as  to  take  an  undue  share  of 
profits  either  from  consumer  or  laborer.  An 
extreme  example  may  be  found  in  that  type  of 


106       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

South  American  enterprise  which  secures  pe- 
ons by  the  trickery  of  loans,  keeps  them  bound 
by  debt,  pays  them  what  it  pleases  and  com- 
pels them  to  purchase  all  supplies  at  its  own 
store  and  at  its  own  price.  This  is  interfer- 
ence in  the  normal  adjustment  of  values,  both 
of  labor  and  of  supplies.  A  ring  of  coal  deal- 
ers, acting  in  conjunction  with  producers  who 
held  the  claims  of  labor  in  abeyance  by  threats 
of  government  intervention  to  avoid  disturb- 
ance in  war  time,  has  been  able  to  force  con- 
sumers to  pay  for  a  necessary  commodity  some- 
thing more  than  double  its  value.  Any  large 
aggregation  of  capital,  dealing  in  any  commod- 
ity, can  throttle  small  competitors  and  collect 
the  losses  involved  through  subsequent  en- 
hanced prices  to  consumers.  These  common- 
places illustrate  the  fact  that  business  is  al- 
ways endeavoring  to  over-reach  and  levy  a  tax 
for  the  use  of  commodities.  Such  factors  are 
difficult  to  find  and  more  difficult  to  deal  with, 
but  they  exist  everywhere  and  prove  that  com- 
petition is  merely  a  Utopian  condition,  and 
laissez  faire  a  blind  doctrine  which  permits  the 
most  ruthless  exploitation. 


THE  METHODS  OF  MONOPOLY       107 

The  function  of  the  state  is  increasingly 
conceived  as  one  of  intervention  in  the  economic 
process,  not,  however,  in  the  old  manner  of 
being  itself  a  monopolist.  The  days  are  past, 
except  in  backward  countries,  when  the  priv- 
ilege of  exclusive  dealing  in  any  commodity  is 
sold  by  king  or  government.  There  is  dimin- 
ishing tolerance  for  the  derivation  of  revenue 
from  the  direct  monopoly  of  any  article  of  con- 
tinuous necessity.  Obviously  a  tax  upon  salt 
could  secure  whatever  income  a  state  might 
require.  The  article  merely  goes  upon  the 
market  and  collects  from  the  consumer  its  own 
value  plus  the  tax.  Any  article  so  treated, 
whether  matches  or  tobacco  in  France,  spirits 
in  Russia,  or  tea  or  tobacco  in  England,  come 
within  the  same  category.  Excise  or  tariff 
duties  involve  no  difference  in  principle;  the 
liquor  traffic  in  Great  Britain  is,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  a  form  of  government  monopoly.  The 
tendency  is  away  from  crude  and  primitive 
forms  of  interference  in  the  economic  process 
and  more  in  the  direction  of  restraint  upon  the 
more  obviously  predatory  elements  in  the  busi- 
ness world.  To  redress  economic  grievances 


108       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

and  maintain  the  balance  fair,  seems  to  be  in- 
creasingly a  function  of  the  state. 

It  is  obvious,  however,  that  regulation  is  a 
mode  of  interference  which  differs  in  principle 
from  intervention,  or  playing  a  direct  part  in 
the  business  world.  Possibly  regulation  could 
be  carried  far  enough  to  prevent  exploitation  in 
some  kinds  of  industry,  but  its  machinery 
would  have  to  be  elaborated  to  an  extensive 
degree,  and  there  would  still  remain  many 
modes  of  evasion;  and  it  is  not  always  certain 
that  inspection  is  efficient.  The  British  rail- 
ways provide  a  good  example.  The  conditions 
of  labor  may  be  perfectly  defined  and  well 
enforced,  tariffs  may  be  adjusted  with  great 
precision,  there  may  even  be  control  over  the 
issue  of  capital  and  the  collection  of  dividends, 
but  the  railway  remains  in  principle  a  business 
for  exploitation  and  not  for  service.  Again, 
the  most  careful  and  thorough-going  inspection 
of  the  coal  industry  can  hardly  alter  the  fact 
that  neither  labor  nor  the  consuming  public 
has  more  than  a  small  portion  of  the  benefit 
from  this  national  possession. 

In  America,  experience  proves  tHat  the  In- 


THE  METHODS  OF  MONOPOLY       109 

terstate  Commerce  Commission,  even  after 
great  efforts,  can  have  only  a  slight  and  mo- 
mentary effect  upon  the  gigantic  interests  that 
it  endeavors  to  hold  within  bounds.  It  needs 
be  recognized,  therefore,  that  while  regulation 
and  inspection  are  probably  always  necessary 
as  a  mode  of  state  interference,  they  differ  es- 
sentially and  in  principle  from  direct  partici- 
pation in  the  economic  process.  The  opinion 
is  always  growing,  however,  that  the  state 
should  be  able  in  the  last  analysis  to  play  a 
decisive  part  in  the  conduct  of  business,  and 
that  this  part  should  somehow  be  associated 
with  the  derivation  of  the  national  income.  If 
some  guiding  principle  could  be  discovered 
which  would  place  in  government  hands  the 
special  territory  in  which  the  most  extensive 
forms  of  exploitation  are  practiced,  and  from 
which  others  are  derived,  the  state  would  at 
once  be  in  a  position  to  apply  a  large  income 
to  national  purposes  and  at  the  same  time  hold 
the  economic  balance. 

Only  slight  examination  of  existing  facts 
is  needed  to  show  that  in  productive  industry 
neither  capital  expended  on  equipment  nor  la- 


110      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

bor  hired  for  operation,  receives  an  undue  share 
of  returns.  It  is  therefore  to  the  other  factor 
in  production,  namely,  that  of  natural  re- 
sources, that  attention  must  be  given.  When 
the  combined  effort  of  capital  and  labor  brings 
to  the  surface  a  ton  of  coal,  the  first  charge 
upon  it  is  a  royalty  to  the  colliery  owner.  The 
accident  that  a  man  possesses  a  plot  of  land 
beneath  which  nature  has  placed  a  carbonifer- 
ous deposit  enables  him,  without  the  expendi- 
ture of  capital  or  applying  the  labor  of  his 
hands,  or  exercising  an  effort  of  any  kind,  to 
levy  a  tax  for  his  private  emolument  upon  the 
consuming  public.  It  shows  great  considera- 
tion on  his  part  to  allow  the  nation  to  make 
any  use  of  these  natural  and  national  resources, 
and  the  people,  possibly  out  of  gratitude,  as 
nothing  else  can  explain  this  curious  fact,  re- 
ward him  with  a  fortune  which  he  does  nothing 
to  earn.  One  has  only  to  mention  oil,  coal, 
steel  and  copper,  together  with  the  railways 
which  transport  them,  to  account  for  nearly 
all  the  great  fortunes  made  in  America. 
Probably  the  capital  actually  expended  in  bor- 
ing and  pumping  machinery  is  never  overpaid ; 


THE  METHODS  OF  MONOPOLY       111 

it  is  certain  that  the  laborers  who  carry  on  the 
work  never  receive  more  than  their  due.  How 
then  can  oil  produce  fortunes  ?  The  answer  is 
perfectly  simple.  It  is  by  securing  control  of 
the  oil  supply  and  levying  a  tax  upon  the  world 
for  being  permitted  to  use  it.  This  tax  is 
merged  in  the  price  of  oil,  and  the  world  does 
not  seem  to  have  sufficient  intelligence  to  dis- 
tinguish it.  A  London  laborer  who  with  his 
family  occupies  a  single  room,  pays  for  the 
privilege  of  being  somewhere  above  a  few 
square  feet  of  ground,  a  tax  to  some  individual 
who  exerts  himself  no  more  than  to  check  his 
receipts,  and  usually  even  this  is  deputed  to 
someone  else.  One  is  taxed  if  one  walks  or 
sits  or  sleeps  upon  the  earth's  surface,  and 
even  for  the  privilege  of  being  buried.  The 
rule  for  fortune  making  is  then  a  simple  one. 
It  is  to  corner  some  portion  of  nature  and 
charge  the  world  an  admission  fee. 

So  far  in  commercial  evolution  there  has 
appeared  only  one  mode  of  protection  for  the 
purchasing  public.  The  housewife's  reply, 
"It  is  cheaper  across  the  way,  I  will  buy  it 
there"  contains  the  whole  philosophy  of  com- 


112      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

petitive  prices  and  the  fixing  of  values.  It  is 
therefore  of  prime  importance  for  any  would- 
be  monopolist  to  drive  his  opponents  from  the 
field,  so  that  the  purchaser  may  have  no  alter- 
native but  to  buy  his  commodity,  if  it  is  an  ob- 
ject of  necessity,  at  his  own  prices.  If  a  com- 
petitor cannot  be  driven  out  he  may  perhaps 
be  absorbed  and  the  spoils  shared.  As  capital 
aggregates,  it  becomes  easier  to  make  life  im- 
possible for  the  smaller  opponents.  For  this 
purpose,  it  is  useful  to  control  the  means 
of  communication.  The  great  monopolistic 
trusts  of  America  invariably  dominate  the 
important  railway  lines.  The  practical  effect 
is  simple  enough.  If  you  are  a  great  colliery 
owner  in  any  district  and  a  small  opponent 
begins  to  work  a  coal  field  that  he  happens  to 
possess,  you  have  only  to  see  that  he  is  given 
no  railway  trucks  to  transport  his  produce; 
you  may  then  purchase  the  mine  at  your  own 
price. 

There  is  much  idle  talk  in  this  day  about 
the  morality  of  business.  It  is  held  a  repre- 
hensible thing  to  strangle  a  small  competitor 
or  to  exploit  the  public  in  a  ruthless  manner; 


THE  METHODS  OF  MONOPOLY       113 

but  this  attitude  is  altogether  senseless.  Busi- 
ness is  business,  and  men  do  what  the  condi- 
tions permit  them  to  do.  There  are  not  many 
who  would  refuse  the  prerogatives  of  president 
of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  or  of  a  London 
ground  landlord.  If  the  business  of  highway 
robbery  had  not  been  excluded  by  a  very  ef- 
ficient set  of  conditions  and  if  it  had  depended 
upon  merely  moral  sanctions,  it  would  now 
be  in  a  flourishing  condition.  As  circum- 
stances made  it  more  difficult  for  the  highway- 
man to  practice  his  profession,  he  doubtless 
developed  strong  convictions  regarding  the  in- 
violability of  the  person.  It  is  useful  for  all 
monopolists  to  control  the  channels  of  public- 
ity in  order  to  keep  before  the  public  the 
eternal  principle  of  the  sanctity  of  private 
property.  The  fact  is  that  as  soon  as  the  world 
understands  the  matter  and  is  aware  of  para- 
sitism, it  will  say  little  about  the  immorality  of 
business  but  promptly  rearrange  conditions  to 
make  it  impossible.  The  monopolist  is  prob- 
ably in  the  vast  majority  of  cases  like  anybody 
else,  no  better  and  no  worse,  and  merely  takes 
advantage  of  a  business  opportunity  presented 


114       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

to  him,  just  as  anyone  else  would  do.  It  is 
foolish  to  attack  persons  instead  of  rearrang- 
ing conditions.  Mr.  Fels  often  said  that  cir- 
cumstances had  made  him  a  robber.  He 
merely  accepted  profits  from  a  business  which 
depended  partly  upon  the  sagacity  of  his 
brother  and  himself,  and  partly  upon  the  mo- 
nopoly of  a  most  valuable  manufacturing  pro- 
cess. Anyone  else  would  do  the  same ;  but  Mr. 
Fels  possessed  a  clarified  vision  and  knew  how 
the  trick  was  done,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life 
never  felt  his  money  to  be  a  private  possession. 
He  was  determined  that  in  so  far  as  lay  in  his 
power,  monopoly  should  be  suicidal. 

It  is  clear  then  that  there  are  factors  in  the 
business  world  which  tend  to  emerge  and  as- 
sume a  position  of  advantage  with  reference  to 
the  others.  Even  if  they  are  for  a  time  in- 
volved in  production,  they  gradually  withdraw 
and  assume  the  role  of  tribute  gatherers. 
Landlordism  in  any  one  of  its  multitudinous 
forms  is  merely  a  monopoly  of  one  of  the  nat- 
ural sources  of  wealth;  and  rent,  instead  of 
being  a  reward  for  labor  or  for  the  use  of  capi- 


THE  METHODS  OF  MONOPOLY       115 

tal,  is  a  type  of  profits  which  represents  no 
contribution  to  the  world's  store  of  wealth,  but 
is  a  tax  levied  on  production  for  permission  to 
approach  the  natural  sources,  paid  by  both 
capital  and  labor  unless  they  can  devise  some 
means  of  re-collecting  from  the  consumer.  As 
wealth  accumulates  through  production,  the 
tendency  is  for  any  large  fortune  to  entrench 
itself  as  landlord.  To  collect  rent  is  the  best 
and  most  secure  method  the  world  has  yet  de- 
vised for  getting  something  for  nothing.  In 
a  nation  with  multiplying  resources,  there  is 
eager  competition  in  the  monopoly  market,  and 
these  commodities  are  forced  to  high  prices. 
It  is  a  commonplace  that  increase  of  wealth 
and  population  carries  an  increase  of  land 
values  and  correspondingly  higher  rentals.  It 
is  also  a  profitable  field  for  speculation.  To 
hold  landed  property  on  the  outskirts  of  a 
growing  town  and  wait  for  the  ripe  fortune  to 
drop  into  one's  hands  is  the  most  common  of 
spectacles  in  all  new  countries.  This  eager- 
ness to  collect  tribute  is  probably  an  explana- 
tion of  those  recurring  waves  of  business  de- 


116      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

pression  which  sweep  over  the  world.  It  is 
well  known  that  the  cost  of  land  in  the  Argen- 
tine has  passed  its  productive  value,  that  the 
profits  of  working  can  hardly  more  than  meet 
the  rental  charges  and  operating  expenses,  and 
yet  people  wonder  why  there  should  be  depres- 
sion in  the  Argentine  trade.  The  explana- 
tion is  a  simple  one.  If  the  landlord  collects 
all  that  the  land  produces,  there  is  little  left 
with  which  to  buy  imports,  and  given  a  credit 
system  which  stands  like  a  pyramid  on  its  apex, 
it  is  not  strange  that  the  countries  which  depend 
on  the  sale  of  manufactured  articles  should 
feel  the  consequences.  There  is  of  course  an 
arrest  in  the  increase  of  land  values  until  capi- 
tal and  labor,  by  improved  processes  or  by  ad- 
justing themselves  to  a  diminished  margin,  can 
recover  the  balance.  It  is  difficult  for  the  Brit- 
ish mechanic  to  understand  that  the  hard  times 
which  throw  him  out  of  employment  and  re- 
duce him  to  privation,  may  result  from  the 
grabbing  propensities  of  landlords  in  the  Ar- 
gentine or  Australia  or  South  Africa.  Mr. 
Fels  knew  that  his  reform  needed  to  be  as  world 
wide  as  commerce  and  credit,  and  for  this  rea- 


THE  METHODS  OF  MONOPOLY       117 
\ 

son  refused  to  work  within  the  closed  limits 
of  nationality.  He  was  "the  American  who 
came  interfering  in  the  domestic  affairs  of 
England." 


T 


X 

The  Single  Tax 

EN  years'  social  and  economic  experimen- 
tation had  brought  Mr.  Fels  to  an  accord 
with  the  political  teaching  associated  with  the 
name  of  Henry  George,  to  which  he  had  given 
neither  close  study  nor  careful  thought.  Now 
it  seemed  to  him  as  in  a  sudden  illumination 
the  social  truth  for  which  he  had  been  so  long 
seeking.  It  provided,  he  conceived,  not 
merely  a  means  for  the  mitigation  of  the  ills 
of  poverty,  but  a  method  by  which  poverty  it- 
self could  be  finally  wiped  out.  It  is  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  that  once  the  vision  was 
clear,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  throw  his  whole 
energy  into  the  propagation  of  this  doctrine. 
The  teaching  which  centers  around  the 
name  of  Henry  George  has  come  to  occupy 
a  prominent  place  in  contemporary  economic 
discussion.  At  the  very  height  of  its  power 

118 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  119 

and  influence,  the  Times  thought  it  necessary 
to  devote  two  pages  of  space,  more  valuable 
then  than  now,  to  a  consideration  of  Progress 
and  Poverty  by  the  then  unknown  Calif ornian. 
It  was  not  a  book  lightly  to  be  dismissed.  Its 
doctrines  were  not  sufficiently  answered  by  the 
mere  reply  that  it  did  not  meet  with  the  ac- 
ceptance of  orthodox  economists.  It  has  been 
characteristic  of  orthodox  economists  to  brand 
as  impossible  every  new  doctrine  that  has  not 
yet  won  its  way  into  the  ordinary  thought  of 
men.  The  theory  could  command  consider- 
able antiquity  if  that  assists  to  its  adequate  ap- 
preciation. It  was  urged  at  the  birth  of  scien- 
tific economics.  Quesnay  and  Turgot  had 
firm  hold  of  its  central  idea;  the  latter  indeed 
had  so  far  understood  its  significance  that  its 
application  was  the  central  point  of  his  policy 
when  minister  of  finance  to  Louis  XVI.  If 
the  attention  of  thinkers  was  drawn  away  from 
the  direction  the  Physiocrats  attempted  to  give 
to  economic  study,  that  was  due  to  no  fault  of 
their  teaching.  It  was  because  the  application 
of  science  to  industry  changed  the  whole  orien- 
tation of  European  thought. 


120       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Wealth,  the  Physiocrats  taught,  is  based  in 
the  last  analysis  upon  land.  Man  is  economi- 
cally as  well  as  by  nature  a  child  of  the  earth. 
Henry  George  seized  this  cardinal  truth  at 
the  very  outset  of  his  thought.  If  land  is  the 
basis  of  all  wealth  and  if  all  men  have  need 
of  wealth  that  they  may  live,  it  is  clearly  un- 
just that  land  should  become  the  possession  of 
the  few;  the  vast  majority  must  thereby  be 
deprived  of  access  to  the  means  of  living. 
"The  ownership  of  land,"  wrote  Henry 
George,  "is  the  great  fundamental  fact  which 
ultimately  determines  the  social,  the  political, 
the  economic,  and,  consequently,  the  intellec- 
tual and  moral  condition  of  a  people.  And 
it  must  be  so.  For  land  is  the  habitation  of 
man,  the  store-house  upon  which  he  must  draw 
for  all  his  needs." 

In  the  course  of  history  men  have,  for  the 
most  part,  been  deprived  of  their  natural  in- 
heritance. In  order  that  they  may  live  and 
increase  they  have  been  compelled  to  add  to 
that  inheritance,  to  augment  the  fortune  that 
the  few  enjoy.  It  is  impossible  to  trace  the 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  121 

steps  in  that  process,  for  it  is  the  record  of 
the  whole  of  mankind.  But  it  is  historically 
undeniable  that  as  men  have  been  in  greater 
numbers  divorced  from  the  soil,  as  they  have 
been  forced  into  the  class  called  the  proletariat, 
have  arisen  the  crucial  economic  problems  that 
confront  the  modern  democracy.  The  value 
of  land,  Ricardo  taught  long  ago,  is  fixed  by 
that  least  productive  soil  which  social  circum- 
stances call  into  productive  use.  The  differ- 
ence between  its  productivity  and  that  which 
gives  the  highest  yield  is  called,  simply,  rent. 
But  who  created  this  difference?  It  is  due  to 
the  foresight  of  no  individual.  It  is  due  to 
position,  the  pressure  of  population,  the  pos- 
sibility of  supplying  with  greater  ease  the  needs 
of  that  population.  It  is  in  short  the  existence 
of  the  community.  In  proportion  as  land  has 
been  concentrated  in  the  hands  of  a  few,  those 
few  have  been  able  to  profit  by  the  genius  and 
industry  of  the  community.  Society  suffers 
from  its  own  improvement.  By  one  of  the 
grimmest  ironies  to  which  history  bears  wit- 
ness, those  to  whom  a  purely  fortuitous  event 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

has  given  possession  of  the  soil,  become  legally 
and  economically  entitled  to  tax  the  commun- 
ity in  proportion  to  its  progress. 

For  Henry  George,  the  central  social  prob- 
lem consisted  in  the  removal  of  this  anomaly. 
He  understood  what  Joseph  Fels  later  ex- 
pressed in  a  single  emphatic  phrase,  "No  man 
should  have  the  power  to  take  wealth  he  has 
not  produced  or  earned."  The  value  of  land 
is  mainly  increased  by  communal  effort. 
"Land,"  Mr.  Fels  wrote,  "has  a  value  apart 
from  the  value  of  things  produced  by  labor; 
as  population  and  industry  increase,  the  value 
of  land  increases.  That  increase  is  commun- 
ity-made value.  I  believe  it  belongs  to  the 
community  just  as  the  wealth  produced  by 
you  belongs  to  you.  Therefore  I  believe  that 
the  fundamental  evil,  the  great  God-denying 
crime  of  society  is  the  iniquitous  system  under 
which  men  are  permitted  to  put  into  their 
pockets,  confiscate  in  fact,  the  community- 
made  values  of  land.  It  is  proposed  to  take 
to  the  community  thab  which  is  so  obviously 
its  own.  What  economically  it  creates,  that 
it  has  morally  the  right  to  enjoy.  If  this  view 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  123 

were  put  on  no  ground  other  than  that  of  com- 
mon sense  it  would  of  a  certainty  be  obvious 
enough.  It  is  in  fact  socially  axiomatic.  We 
can  proceed  no  further  in  our  social  develop- 
ment unless  account  be  taken  of  its  essential 
lightness." 

If  society  creates  these  values,  it  has  a  clear 
right  to  their  possession.  And,  as  Joseph 
Fels  was  never  tired  of  insisting,  it  is  a  little 
late  in  the  day  to  bring  against  this  new  decla- 
ration of  right  the  sneer  that  such  rights  are 
unhistorical.  We  urge,  he  once  told  an  ob- 
jector, that  the  right  is  the  offspring  of  an 
obvious  social  need.  How  then  is  that  right 
to  be  enforced?  The  answer  given  by  the 
Single  Taxers  has  at  any  rate  the  merit — and 
administratively  this  is  of  vast  importance — 
of  simplicity.  It  is  proposed  to  tax  the  value 
of  land,  irrespective  of  any  improvements  that 
may  be  effected  thereon,  and  to  tax  nothing 
else. 

Income  as  a  result  of  personal  exertions 
is  economically  justified  in  claiming  exemp- 
tion. Imports  and  exports  should  be  exempt 
because  they  are  ultimately  the  product  of 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

labor.  It  is  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  social 
changes  which  would  result  from  this  reform. 
It  is  in  fact,  what  Henry  George  called  a  true 
reform  because  it  makes  other  reforms  pos- 
sible. The  taxation  of  land  values  will  in  the 
first  place  raise  revenue.  Even  here  it  has  an 
advantage  over  other  systems.  It  is  open  and 
it  is  certain — two  advantages  not  lightly  to  be 
minimized.  It  will  have  about  it  none  of  the 
complex  mystery  which  is  associated  with  taxa- 
tion at  the  present  time.  That,  however,  is 
comparatively  a  minor  advantage.  Its  effect 
on  industry  must  necessarily  be  of  a  far  reach- 
ing character.  The  tax  in  the  first  place  will 
be  borne  by  the  land  owner;  economists  from 
Ricardo  to  Marshall  have  united  in  the  decla- 
ration that  a  tax  on  economic  rent  cannot  be 
shifted  either  to  tenant  or  to  consumer.  It 
will  thus  force  into  use  land  that  is  at  present, 
either  for  purposes  of  speculation  or  of  selfish 
enjoyment,  held  out  of  use;  for  the  tax  will 
be  greater  than  the  land  owner  can  bear  unless 
he  attempts  improvements  to  meet  it.  He  will 
use  his  land  simply  because  he  will  not  be  able 
to  do  otherwise. 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  125 

What  would  happen  in  an  urban  commun- 
ity as  a  result  of  this  reform  was,  to  Mr.  Fels' 
thinking,  one  of  its  most  important  conse- 
quences. The  more  land  is  forced  into  utili- 
zation the  cheaper  must  rents  become,  because 
the  quantity  of  buildings  is  greater,  supply  is 
increased  relatively  to  demand.  That  is  itself 
an  important  change  in  modern  urban  condi- 
tions. A  serious  blow  may  thus  be  struck  at 
the  prohibitive  rents  of  great  industrial  centers. 
Not  only  is  the  landlord  economically  com- 
pelled to  improve  his  urban  property,  but  to 
improve  it  he  must  give  work  that  is  socially 
useful  and  thus  increase  employment. 

If  more  land  is  forced  into  cultivation 
clearly  the  price  of  raw  materials  must  be  re- 
duced. This  from  a  business  point  of  view  was 
an  argument  to  which  Mr.  Fels  attached  great 
importance.  In  his  own  industry  he  found 
grave  difficulties  resulting  from  the  possession 
by  very  few  of  all  the  available  sources  of 
supply.  It  was  not  that  those  sources  were 
scanty  and  approaching  exhaustion;  supplies 
were  deliberately  restricted  in  order  to  enhance 
profits  on  a  small  output.  Mr.  Fels  urged 


126       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

constantly  that  half  the  evils  of  the  increased 
cost  of  living  in  recent  years  were  due  to  this 
one  tremendous  fact,  the  "cornering"  as  he  put 
it,  "by  a  few,  of  the  natural  resources  of  which 
all  men  have  need."  He  saw  that  if  the  full 
extent  of  those  resources  was  brought  into  use, 
the  price  of  raw  materials  would  be  reduced 
with  a  clear  effect  upon  the  cost  of  living. 

That  result  would  assist  greatly  the  con- 
dition of  the  working  class.  If  there  is  an  in- 
creased demand  for  labor  there  must  be  an  in- 
crease in  wages ;  not  even  the  opponents  of  the 
Single  Tax  deny  the  applicability  to  modern 
conditions  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand. 
Here  was  what  appeared  to  Mr.  Fels  the  es- 
sential merit  of  Henry  George's  doctrine.  By 
calling  into  use  to  their  fullest  extent  the  nat- 
ural resources  of  the  state,  an  attack  would 
be  made  at  the  very  root  of  the  social  problem. 
The  cost  of  living  would  be  cheapened,  the 
possibilities  of  the  community  utilized  and  new 
opportunities  opened  for  labor.  A  reform 
such  as  this  seemed  to  Mr.  Fels  the  first  satis- 
factory method  he  had  encountered  of  dealing 
with  the  problem  of  poverty. 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  127 

It  seemed  to  him,  moreover,  a  natural  re- 
form. It  would  remove  restrictions.  It 
would  make  unnecessary  those  taxes  on  com- 
merce which,  as  Henry  George  pointed  out, 
prevent  the  free  play  of  exchange.  It  would 
stimulate  industry  by  opening  out  new  op- 
portunities for  the  efficient  use  of  capital.  It 
would  make  far  easier  the  collection  of  revenue 

i 

by  substituting  a  single  and  simple  method  of 
taxation  which  would  require  comparatively 
little  administration,  for  a  number  of  complex 
and  usually  conflicting  methods  which  require 
a  heavy  staff  of  operators.  It  would  lessen 
to  a  remarkable  degree  and  even  destroy  the 
opportunities  by  which  monopoly  and  special 
privilege  have  attained  their  present  high  posi- 
tion in  the  state.  It  would  be  an  equal  system 
inasmuch  as  it  assumes  that  a  man  should  pay 
for  what  he  possesses  of  the  peculiar  benefit 
in  the  way  of  economic  privilege  that  the  state 
can  confer,  the  use  of  the  land.  It  thus  con- 
forms to  Adam  Smith's  canon  of  taxation  that 
men  should  contribute  to  the  state  "in  propor- 
tion to  the  revenue  which  they  respectively 
enjoy  under  the  protection  of  the  state." 


128      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Mirabeau's  father  was  wont  to  say  that  the  dis- 
covery of  the  principle  of  land  taxation  was 
of  an  importance  equal  to  that  of  the  invention 
of  writing. 

Important  as  were  these  economic  consid- 
erations, it  was  for  reasons  of  an  ethical  kind 
that  Mr.  Fels  embraced  the  Single  Tax  doc- 
trine with  so  whole  hearted  an  enthusiasm. 
For  him,  it  made  possible  the  approach  of  a 
new  social  morality.  It  gave  each  man  the 
opportunity  to  be  himself.  It  opened  out  for 
the  first  time  the  well  springs  of  his  own  na- 
ture. It  made  possible  an  era  of  justice. 
This  was  for  him  essentially  its  greatest  recom- 
mendation. For  he  had  long  been  seriously 
oppressed  by  the  perception  that  justice  was 
impossible  in  a  social  order  unjust  in  its  very 
foundations.  A  real  freedom  could  come  only 
when  the  community  had  acquired  the  material 
basis  of  freedom;  and  he  realized  that  until 
that  liberty  was  attained  every  plea  for  social 
fraternity  was  the  veriest  hypocrisy.  Brother- 
hood, he  said  often  enough,  is  only  possible 
among  equals.  If  a  condition  of  life  obtains 
in  which  the  vast  majority  is  dependent  upon 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  189 

a  small  minority  for  its  daily  bread,  that  eco- 
nomic subjection  will  result  in  political  en- 
slavement. It  was,  as  he  saw,  a  slavery  in 
everything  but  name.  It  was  a  negation  of 
democracy.  It  destroyed  equality  of  oppor- 
tunity. It  created  unjust  distinctions  of  class. 
The  economic  falsehood  permeated  even  the 
church.  Men  of  religion  came  to  preach  that 
morality  was  the  acceptance  of  this  untruth. 
It  vitiated  the  system  of  education.  Political 
economists  constructed  a  code  which  attempted 
to  weld  ever  more  firmly  the  worker's  chains. 
That  is  why  Mr.  Fels  stigmatized  the  land 
monopoly  as  a  "God-denying  crime."  He 
could  see  no  end  to  its  ramifications.  It 
seemed  to  penetrate  into  every  nook  and 
cranny  of  the  state.  The  divorce  of  men  from 
the  soil  had  been  the  main  source  of  poverty. 
They  had  lost  their  birthright  and  it  seemed 
to  him  that  of  all  tasks  by  far  the  noblest  was 
to  restore  them  to  their  inheritance. 

Many  who  met  Mr.  Fels  after  he  had  be- 
come interested  in  Single  Tax  were  inclined 
to  complain  that  he  thought  of  nothing  else. 
In  a  sense  this  was  true,  and  he  gloried  in  the 


130      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

complaint.  He  told  how  for  the  first  time  he 
had  a  faith  which  was  compelling  and  ade- 
quate. He  had  tired  of  the  continual  tinker- 
ing at  social  ills.  He  had  wearied  of  the  end- 
less procession  of  unavailing  reforms.  Ex- 
pedients of  every  kind  he  had  tried.  Investi- 
gations of  every  kind  had  had  his  sympathy 
and  support.  Yet,  as  he  saw,  decades  of  zeal- 
ous inquiry  had  not  seen  beyond  the  stage  of 
mitigation.  The  cry  for  social  reform,  for  bet- 
ter housing,  higher  wages,  shorter  hours,  all 
these  were  so  many  soporifics  to  make  men 
willing  to  endure  an  order  wrong  and  rotten 
in  its  foundation.  The  cure  for  poverty,  he 
once  said,  is  its  prevention.  He  hated  from 
the  very  depths  of  his  being  the  smug  com- 
placency of  charitable  endeavor.  What  he 
wanted  was  more  than  a  formula  of  benevolent 
regret.  That  is  the  secret  of  the  devotion  he 
paid  to  his  faith. 

It  is  worth  while  emphasizing  how  empiri- 
cal was  Mr.  Fels'  faith.  It  was  not  some  sud- 
den revelation  of  a  mystery  that  had  been  pre- 
viously hidden.  It  came  to  him  after  long  and 
careful  inquiry,  after  manifold  experiments. 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  181 

He  had  tried  charitable  work.  He  had  sup- 
ported almost  every  socialist  and  labor  move- 
ment. He  had  attempted  colonizing  enter- 
prise. Increasingly  he  had  come  to  see  how 
clearly  the  dearth  of  available  land  lay  at  the 
root  of  social  ills.  He  saw,  too,  that  the  land 
monopoly  was  a  hydra-headed  monster;  to  cut 
off  any  save  the  central  head  was  but  to 
strengthen  and  revivify  it.  It  came  to  him 
slowly  but  with  the  deep  conviction  that  is 
born  of  intimate  experience,  that  the  cardinal 
principle  in  any  declaration  of  social  faith  must 
be  the  destruction  of  the  land  monopoly. 
Everything  else  seemed  to  him  but  the  estab- 
lishment of  fine  superstructures  upon  a  worth- 
less basis  of  sand,  and,  as  he  once  whimsically 
said,  even  for  that  rent  had  to  be  paid.  He 
did  not  put  forward  the  Single  Tax  as  a  pan- 
acea. He  had  too  much  knowledge  of  the 
cdmplexity  of  social  life  to  be  thus  unintel- 
ligent. What  he  did  insistently  emphasize 
was  the  truth  that  the  time  for  tinkering  at 
our  ills  had  gone  by,  that  it  was  vital  to  set 
about  the  building  of  a  new  social  structure. 
With  Mr.  Fels  to  realize  was  to  act.  Once 


132      JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

the  vision  had  been  clearly  seen,  he  set  to  work 
to  attempt  its  fulfillment.  He  made  inquiries 
in  every  direction  to  know  what  work  was 
being  done  for  the  Single  Tax,  who  were  do- 
ing it,  how  it  was  being  done.  He  proffered 
whatever  services  he  could  render,  time,  money, 
organization,  thought,  with  an  eager  gladness 
that  put  new  courage  into  the  hearts  of  all 
with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  Unlike  the 
majority  in  any  movement,  he  contributed  not 
only  enthusiasm  but  also,  what  was  even  more 
important,  suggestive  ideas.  He  was  so  es- 
sentially a  man  of  action  that  in  him  theory, 
almost  at  the  birth,  crystallized  into  prac- 
tice. The  thing  was  urgent,  it  should  be  done. 
There  was  something  infectious  in  the  opti- 
mism by  which  he  became  possessed.  He  was, 
as  he  conceived,  working  directly  at  the  main 
root  of  social  ill.  He  had  been  given  a  key 
that  opened  the  gate  to  a  new  and  splendid 
world. 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  to  Henry 
George  no  less  than  to  Joseph  Fels  did  the 
inspiration  of  this  work  bring  content  and  op- 
timism. Those  who  knew  him  found  in  him 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  133 

a  new  purposiveness  direct  and  impressive. 
The  reason  is  simple.  They  had  both  been 
puzzled  by  the  confusion  of  the  modern  social 
order.  They  had  both,  until  comparatively 
well  on  in  years,  wandered  almost  blindly 
ahead,  searching,  experimenting,  hoping,  and 
yet  ever  failing  to  find  a  real  clue  to  that  vast 
labyrinth.  The  watch  words  of  a  campaign 
were  theirs.  They  knew  that  over  the  gate- 
way to  the  world  of  their  dream  liberty  and 
justice  must  be  written.  They  knew  there 
was  work  for  them  to  do ;  and  then  there  came 
knowledge  of  the  way.  "Liberty,"  wrote 
Henry  George,  "came  to  a  race  of  slaves 
crouching  under  Egyptian  whips  and  led  them 
forth  from  the  House  of  Bondage.  She  har- 
dened them  in  the  desert  and  made  them  a  race 
of  conquerors.  The  free  spirit  of  the  Mosaic 
law  took  their  thinkers  up  to  heights  where 
they  beheld  the  unity  of  God,  and  inspired  in 
their  poets  strains  that  yet  phrase  the  highest 
exaltations  of  thought."  It  was  the  desire  to 
recover  the  spirit  of  liberty  that  took  posses- 
sion of  Henry  George  and,  in  no  less  degree, 
of  Joseph  Fels.  He  would  help  men,  in  that 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

fine  phrase  of  Mirns,  to  share  no  less  in  the 
gain  than  in  the  toil  of  living.  The  optimism 
which  characterized  both  George  and  himself 
was  born  of  a  certainty  that  his  mission  was 
true.  To  him  the  axioms  of  the  Single  Tax 
not  merely  represented  the  sum  of  his  whole 
industrial  experience,  but  were  the  truest  de- 
scription of  the  economic  realities  that  lie  at 
the  bottom  of  social  appearance.  Had  it  been 
objected  to  him  that  these  axioms  were  too 
simple  for  the  facts  they  attempted  to  describe 
he  would  have  replied  that  the  truth  is  in  its 
nature  a  simple  thing;  it  is,  he  once  said,  the 
"rediscovery  of  the  obvious."  He  believed 
that  social  complexity  was  simply  the  child  of 
social  ill.  It  was  the  product  of  centuries  of 
accumulated  economic  error.  Once  we  re- 
turned to  the  working  of  what  he  called  nat- 
ural law,  once  we  restored  to  man  what  was  his 
by  right,  economists  would  find  that  social  life 
would  proceed  simply,  because  it  would  pro- 
ceed justly.  To  him  the  application  of  Henry 
George's  doctrine  meant  the  restoration  of 
man's  natural  right.  If  men  are  to  possess 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  185 

happiness  they  must  have  access  to  the  means 
of  life. 

Mr.  Fels  had  always  a  deep  interest  in  the 
opposition  to  the  Single  Tax  and  his  corre- 
spondence, no  less  than  his  speeches,  is  full 
of  comments  on  its  nature.  To  the  argument 
which  has  latterly  found  favor  with  the  most 
academic  and  distinguished  of  his  antagonists, 
that  the  Single  Tax  means  the  abolition  of  a 
system  of  protection  to  home  industries,  Mr. 
Fels  would  have  replied  that  there  was  noth- 
ing he  so  ardently  desired.  It  was  not  only, 
as  he  judged,  that  a  protected  industry  was  a 
parasitic  industry,  and  thus  an  industry  never 
standing  on  its  own  feet  by  virtue  of  its  native 
strength,  but  what  to  his  cosmopolitan  temper 
was  far  more  serious,  a  protective  system  was 
supremely  hostile  to  international  fellowship. 
He  pointed  out  again  and  again  that  a  nation's 
trade  was  the  expression  of  a  nation's  mind, 
that  the  more  closely  nations  enjoy  commercial 
intercourse,  the  more  do  they  come  to  under- 
stand each  other.  Free  trade,  as  Cobden — 
whom  he  was  proud  to  acclaim  as  a  supporter 


136       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

of  the  Single  Tax — saw,  was  thus  a  means  of 
spreading  friendship.  By  breaking  down  iso- 
lation, it  broke  down  misunderstanding,  than 
which  there  was  no  more  fertile  cause  of  war. 

Perhaps  the  argument  which  most  puzzled 
him  was  the  somewhat  curious  plea  that  the 
Single  Tax  was  dangerous  because,  while  the 
object  of  the  budget  is  to  balance  expenditure 
and  revenue,  it  may  produce  a  surplus.  The 
fear  of  this  surplus  he  could  never  understand 
because  he  knew  how  immense  were  the  com- 
munal needs  to  which  it  could  be  appropriated. 
As  he  once  told  a  questioner,  on  education 
alone  he  would  be  willing  and  prepared  to 
spend  tenfold  the  present  appropriation. 
"We  have  not  yet  begun  to  exploit  the  na- 
tion's abilities,"  he  told  a  friend,  "and  we  can 
sink  plenty  of  money  in  finding  them  out." 
Indeed  it  was  his  eager  anxiety  to  put  the 
plans  he  cherished  into  action  which  made  him 
desirous  of  increasing  the  income  of  the  state. 

He  was  often  told  that  the  Single  Tax  was 
fallacious  because  it  over-simplified  the  prob- 
lem of  assessment.  People  were  fond  of  quot- 
ing to  him  cases  where  property  had  been 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  187 

rated  either  too  high  or  too  low  as  evidence 
that  a  true  valuation  was  impossible.  But  to 
him  this  was  to  neglect  the  whole  point  at 
issue.  The  advocate  of  the  Single  Tax  takes 
as  the  basis  of  his  estimate  the  selling  value  of 
any  piece  of  land,  which  is  sufficiently  easy  to 
ascertain. 

There  is  a  last  group  of  objections  with 
which  he  was  frequently  confronted.  He  was 
sometimes  accused  of  sowing  class  hatred  be- 
cause he  proposed  to  tax  only  the  land-owning 
class  of  the  community.  It  was  once  urged 
to  him  that  the  payment  of  taxation  confers 
a  sense  of  social  responsibility  which  the  Single 
Tax  would  destroy.  It  gives  a  certain  stake 
in  the  community  which  promotes  good  gov- 
ernment. It  was,  again,  represented  to  him 
that  the  evils  borne  by  the  peasantry  of  France 
under  the  ancient  regime  were  largely  brought 
home  to  them  by  the  unjust  burden  of  taxa- 
tion they  were  compelled  to  bear.  Inequitable 
taxation  roused  America  to  revolution.  The 
history  of  English  liberty  is  a  history  of  a 
struggle  to  control  the  revenue.  So  that,  in 
this  view,  taxation  ought  almost  of  necessity 


138       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

to  be  unfairly  imposed  to  arouse  a  people  to 
a  keener  sense  of  its  wrongs.  It  is  curious  to 
find  Mr.  Fels  denounced  as  a  promoter  of 
hatred.  Perhaps  more  than  any  other  man 
who  took  part  in  the  stress  and  heat  of  the 
great  social  conflict  of  his  time,  did  he  have 
an  abiding  sense  of  the  ultimate  unity  of  which 
men  are  capable.  If  he  cried  out  against  the 
land-owners  it  was  because  they  retarded  its 
realization.  It  was  because  they  prevented 
the  promotion  of  economic  fraternity  that  he 
was  assured  of  their  danger  to  the  state.  To 
the  argument  that  to  abolish  taxation  is  to 
destroy  a  sense  of  social  responsibility,  he  made 
answer  that  the  spirit  taxation  breeds  is  not  the 
spirit  that  makes  a  state  endure;  for  him  it 
was  tainted  with  compulsion  and  was  there- 
fore a  barrier  in  the  way  of  freedom.  Un- 
just taxation,  he  once  said,  did  not  cause  the 
American  Revolution,  but  the  repression  those 
taxes  symbolized.  No  one  can  understand  the 
basic  motives  of  his  life  who  does  not  realize 
how  much  of  his  intense  faith  in  the  teaching 
of  Henry  George  came  from  this  hatred  of 
bondage.  The  prophecy  of  eternal  poverty 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  139 

was  to  him  a  doctrine  of  eternal  damnation. 
He  had  to  fight  against  it  because  as  he  said 
again  and  again,  there  was  no  other  fight  worth 
while. 

In  every  man  and  woman  he  saw  a  pos- 
sible crusader.  He  made  no  apology  for  urg- 
ing their  assistance;  he  could  not  understand 
a  lack  of  enthusiasm  for  his  ideal.  If  any- 
thing in  the  world  aroused  in  him  a  sense  of 
bitter  antagonism — and  it  was  rarely  he  could 
be  so  aroused — it  was  the  sight  of  satisfied 
men  and  women.  "So  keen  am  I  in  the  opin- 
ion that  we  are  doing  great  things  these  days," 
he  wrote  to  a  friend  shortly  before  his  death, 
"that  at  the  risk  of  making  myself  a  nuisance 
I  am  approaching  every  man  who  I  believe  has 
money  and  whom  I  know  to  have  a  heart." 
It  is  thus  that  great  movements  are  made. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  how  deeply  his 
business  experience  confirmed  him  in  his  be- 
lief. Often  he  expressed  his  amazement  that 
the  government  of  cities  and  nations  should  be 
carried  on  with  so  little  regard  to  business. 
"Election  to  a  public  office,"  he  wrote,  "seems 
to  denude  a  man  of  all  his  business  acumen 


140       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

and  cause  him  to  forget  all  the  sound  methods 
which  are  essential  to  success  in  the  commer- 
cial world."  It  troubled  him  to  see  a  system 
of  taxation  which  had  simply  grown  up  by  ac- 
cident, in  which  there  was  neither  method  nor 
principle.  He  believed  that  this  confusion  lay 
at  the  root  of  public  indifference  to  social  ques- 
tions. Men  did  not  study  the  problems  of 
communal  life  simply  because  an  artificial  com- 
plexity made  them  seem  dull  by  depriving  them 
of  their  real  vitality.  "If  a  business  man  is 
asked,"  he  said,  "what  principle  is  adopted 
in  raising  the  revenue  of  his  city,  he  will  either 
be  quite  nonplussed,  or  else  he  will  blurt  out 
that  ancient  shibboleth,  ability  to  pay.  Im- 
agine him  trying  to  carry  on  his  business  on 
these  lines,  and  yet  that  is  the  method  we  are 
told  to  adopt  in  taxation."  This  fact  made 
him  eager  to  preach  the  doctrine  to  business 
men.  He  believed  that  with  them  it  would 
make  the  greatest  progress  because  it  was,  as 
he  urged,  in  accordance  "with  sound  and  honest 
business  principles."  It  should  make  a  prac- 
tical and  immediate  appeal  to  manufacturer 
and  worker  alike;  as  he  once  expressed  it,  "it 


THE  SINGLE  TAX  141 

is  the  Key  that  opens  the  door  of  their  common 
interests." 

This  then  was  the  economic  system  of 
Joseph  Fels,  assuredly  no  dismal  science. 
He  tried  to  see  simply  and  truly  the  path  that 
lay  ahead.  He  knew  that  his  belief  ran 
directly  counter  to  accepted  tradition.  He 
knew  that  it  cut  at  the  root  of  convention  and 
prejudice,  he  knew  that  realization  would  lie 
far  beyond  his  time,  but  his  courage  never 
wavered  because  what  he  had  he  knew  to  be 
the  truth. 


XI 

The  Contest  With  the  Leisured 
Class 

HHHE  objective  of  all  of  Mr.  Fels'  later  ac- 
•*•  tivities  was  to  bring  about  a  thorough  dis- 
cussion of  the  taxation  of  land  values  on  the 
platform,  in  the  press  and  in  Parliament.  In 
England  a  particularly  favorable  opportunity 
for  action  had  arrived.  A  new  government 
had  come  into  office  in  1906  with  a  majority 
greater  than  that  possessed  by  any  previous 
ministry.  Its  head,  Sir  Henry  Campbell- 
Bannerman,  had  been  for  many  years  sym- 
pathetically disposed  towards  the  movement. 
In  the  House  of  Commons  itself  the  group  of 
land  taxers  was,  numerically  at  any  rate,  more 
powerful  than  it  had  ever  been  before.  Mr. 
Fels  soon  won  his  way  into  their  confidence. 
He  had  no  personal  axe  to  grind,  no  party 
affiliations  to  embarrass.  He  simply  wanted  to 

142 


CONTEST  WITH  LEISURED  CLASS      143 

help  in  any  way  in  which  help  could  be  ren- 
dered. He  traveled  about  speaking,  wrote  to 
the  press,  interviewed  members  of  Parliament, 
entertained  in  that  social  fashion  which  makes 
half  the  legislation  of  Great  Britain.  His  city 
office  became  a  kind  of  campaigning  center 
where  invariably  a  little  group  of  enthusiasts 
was  to  be  found. 

In  1909  came  what  was  in  a  sense  the  turn- 
ing point  of  his  career.  The  chapter  of  poli- 
tical history  which  led  up  to  and  culminated  in 
the  budget  of  that  year  is  sufficiently  well 
known.  It  represented  the  fruition  of  the  new 
liberalism.  It  had  been  many  years  since  the 
taxation  of  land  values  had  received,  in  the 
famous  Newcastle  program,  the  official  rec- 
ognition of  the  Liberal  Party.  Every  Liberal 
leader  of  importance  during  the  long  period 
of  opposition  had  given  at  least  lip  service, 
and  some  of  them  like  Campbell-Bannerman 
seemed  ready  to  meet  its  claims  in  full.  The 
party,  however,  continued  to  be  dominated  by 
the  old  guard  with  its  Whig  tendencies  and 
Gladstonian  descent.  It  circled  about  the 
time-honored  policies  of  Free  Trade,  Discs- 


144       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

tablishment  and  Home  Rule.  Measures  of 
social  reform  were  incidental  and  tentative. 
Liberalism  had  to  find  itself  after  coming  into 
power.  Gradually,  however,  the  new  elements 
began  to  emerge  and  take  first  place.  The 
problems  of  dense  population  and  the  intensi- 
fying industrial  struggle  could  not  be  solved 
by  the  Gladstonian  formulas.  The  discontent 
of  labor,  now  vocal  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
was  ever  more  ominous.  The  day  had  arrived 
for  live  issues  handled  by  live  men.  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  placed  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  liberal  democracy  and  led  an  attack  upon 
the  very  stronghold  of  privilege.  Whether 
or  not  its  consequences  may  be  obliterated  by 
the  war,  the  budget  of  1909  will  always  stand 
as  the  acme  of  liberal  achievement,  co-ordinate 
with  the  establishment  of  free  trade.  What 
the  budget  actually  proposed  was  little 
enough,  but  the  principle  which  it  involved  will 
without  doubt  achieve  a  social  revolution.  A 
land  tax  was  to  be  introduced  which  differ- 
entiated, for  the  purposes  of  assessment,  be- 
tween the  site  value  and  the  improvement 
value  of  land.  A  new  valuation  was  made 


CONTEST  WITH  LEISURED  CLASS      145 

necessary  which  would  give  the  English  peo- 
ple the  first  understanding  they  had  had  since 
1690  of  what  the  land  was  worth  and  its  pos- 
sibilities as  a  source  of  revenue. 

But  the  most  important  result  of  the 
budget  was  that  the  eyes  of  the  elector  were 
open  to  the  meaning  of  the  Single  Tax.  Mr. 
Fels  began  to  make  preparations  for  a  cam- 
paign of  unprecedented  magnitude.  The 
measure  was  not  Single  Tax;  it  was  far  from 
what  Mr.  Fels  would  have  desired.  But  it 
was  the  thin  end  of  the  wedge.  It  marked  the 
beginning  of  a  statutory  recognition  of  the 
land  tax  principle  and  as  such  was  given  the 
strongest  support  of  the  United  Committee 
and  all  believers  in  the  Single  Tax. 

An  amazing  outburst  of  opposition  was 
provoked  by  the  measure.  The  House  of 
Lords,  as  guardians  of  privilege  and  represen- 
tatives of  the  leisured  class,  decided  to  stake 
its  very  existence  as  a  legislative  power  on  this 
struggle.  If  there  had  ever  been  doubt  as  to 
the  importance  of  a  land  tax,  this  sullen  re- 
sistance showed  it  to  be  the  conviction  of  priv- 
ilege that  the  enactment  of  this  principle  into 


146       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

law  pointed  the  way  to  its  doom.  "Any  one 
would  have  thought,"  Mr.  Fels  once  exclaimed, 
"that  Mr.  Lloyd  George  proposed  to  consign 
the  members  of  the  House  of  Lords  to  the 
workhouse."  The  opposition  was  well  or- 
ganized. The  whole  power  and  tradition  of 
privilege  were  invoked  to  secure  the  defeat  of 
the  measure.  It  was  not  without  success  that 
the  Unionist  Party  endeavored  to  shift  the 
burden  of  conflict  from  the  tax  problem  to  the 
constitutional  question  of  whether  the  House 
of  Lords  had  the  right  to  reject  a  money 
bill.  Leagues  of  protest  against  the  budget 
were  formed.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  the  fight  Mr.  Fels  gave  practical  expres- 
sion of  his  sympathy.  He  has  even  been  ac- 
cused of  being  the  chief  provider  of  munitions 
for  the  campaign.  Although  the  budget  was 
utterly  incomplete  from  his  point  of  view,  he 
felt  that  it  marked  an  era  in  constructive 
legislation.  His  liberality  made  possible  the 
great  demonstration  in  Hyde  Park  which  did 
as  much  to  revive  the  determination  of  the 
Liberal  Ministry  as  it  did  to  overawe  the  op- 
ponents of  the  measure. 


He  sailed  for  the  United  States  late  in 
1909  on  the  eve  of  the  general  election  in  Great 
Britain.  In  his  own  country  he  spoke  every- 
where in  explanation  of  the  British  budget. 
He  was  convinced  that  nothing  was  so  im- 
portant as  to  awaken  the  people  to  an  under- 
standing of  what  possibilities  that  measure 
contained.  There  have  been  few  elections  in 
British  political  history,  the  issue  of  which  has 
been  more  significant  and  upon  which  the  at- 
tention of  the  whole  world  was  more  clearly 
focused,  than  that  of  1910.  It  returned  the 
Liberals  to  power  with  a  mandate  not  only  to 
pass  the  land  clauses  of  the  finance  bill,  but  to 
end  once  for  all  the  veto  power  of  the  House 
of  Lords.  It  was  the  first  concerted  attack 
on  the  leisured  class.  To  Joseph  Fels,  a  dem- 
ocrat, that  was  not  its  least  achievement. 

Social  evolution  is  so  long  in  passing  be- 
yond the  stage  of  tribute  gathering  that  it 
would  almost  seem  that  this  is  established  in 
the  natural  order  of  things.  At  any  rate  this 
appears  to  be  the  conviction  in  the  minds  of 
the  modern  industrial  community.  From  the 
earliest  days  of  the  production  of  wealth  there 


148       JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

have  been  modes  by  which  some  of  it  could  be 
taken  without  compensation.  The  savage 
chief  with  his  band  of  warriors  descended  upon 
a  village,  killed  the  men  and  carried  off  the 
women  and  chattels.  With  a  more  extensive 
and  elaborate  organization  it  was  found  that 
conquest  might  be  put  to  more  useful  purposes. 
Larger  returns  were  available  if  the  conquered 
communities  were  allowed  to  live  and  proceed 
with  the  work  of  production.  It  was  now  only 
necessary  that  a  portion  of  the  proceeds  should 
be  handed  over.  While  savagery  destroyed 
life  outright,  barbarism  gave  the  privilege  of 
continued  existence  in  exchange  for  labor,  and 
this  evolutionary  stage  has  lasted  with  some 
modifications  to  the  present  day. 

When  William  the  Conqueror  came  to 
England  he  achieved  a  very  insignificant  mili- 
tary object,  but  brought  into  play  the  powers 
of  a  most  expert  political  economist.  By  par- 
celling out  the  conquered  territory  to  his  fol- 
lowers, he  assured  the  country  a  thorough-go- 
ing and  efficient  rule  which  centered  in  alle- 
gience  to  the  throne ;  the  law  of  rent  is  infinitely 
more  powerful  than  the  law  of  arms.  In 


CONTEST  WITH  LEISURED  CLASS      149 

course  of  time  the  nobles  came  to  doubt  the 
validity  of  the  King's  first  mortgage,  but  that 
made  no  difference  so  far  as  the  people  were 
concerned.  From  then  till  now,  England  has 
had  the  unshaken  distinction  of  possessing  a 
leisured  class.  Never  once  has  the  right  to 
collect  tribute  from  the  people  been  brought 
into  question.  As  the  old  families  exhausted 
themselves,  the  class  has  been  recruited  from 
the  multitude  of  candidates  derived  from  more 
common  clay,  but  the  tribute  has  gone  on  with- 
out ceasing.  It  must  be  a  matter  of  pride  to 
the  common  people  of  England  that  they  have 
always  done  this  duty  so  nobly  and  unflinch- 
ingly. The  result  is  that  the  modern  commun- 
ity finds  it  difficult  to  obtain  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence because  its  leisured  idols  have  discov- 
ered in  modern  times  so  many  expensive  de- 
vices for  increasing  their  comfort  and  luxury. 
As  this  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  fields 
of  human  psychology,  it  may  be  well  to  in- 
quire into  the  prerogatives  of  landlordism. 
That  the  position  is  one  of  power  goes  almost 
without  saying.  The  fear  of  eviction  or  in- 
creased extortion  is  a  potent  instrument  of  con- 


150       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

trol ;  in  case  of  urgent  need  the  landlord  seldom 
fails  to  use  it.  Even  political  convictions 
sometimes  feel  its  influence. 

But  eyen  more  important  than  the  direct 
relation  between  the  landlord  and  his  retainers 
is  the  exalted  position  which  leisure  maintains 
in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  community.  Re- 
spectability constitutes  the  certain  and  unas- 
sailable line  of  intrenchment  for  the  leisured 
class.  The  plain  fact  is  that  the  only  com- 
pletely respectable  person  is  the  one  who  does 
nothing  at  all,  that  is,  one  who  participates 
in  no  kind  of  productive  work.  In  this,  par- 
asitism does  not  suffice,  or  else  paupers  and 
vagabonds  would  be  elevated  to  high  places; 
but  the  fact  of  leisure  must  be  elaborately  and 
expensively  advertised.  No  device  can  be 
neglected  which  may  illustrate  the  fact  that 
one  is  far  removed  from  any  kind  of  useful 
work.  The  principle  operates  in  many  curi- 
ous ways.  Clothing  of  both  men  and  women 
mounts  the  social  scale  just  in  proportion  as 
it  proves  that  one  could  not,  if  one  wished,  do 
anything.  The  elaborate  cylinders  in  which 
the  respectable  masculine  form  encases  itself, 


CONTEST  WITH  LEISURED  CLASS      151 

no  less  than  the  laced  and  hobbled  and  high 
heeled  attire  of  women,  are  intended  to  give 
the  impression  that  life  is  free  from  labor. 
Ideas  of  cleanliness  are  to  a  large  extent  ficti- 
tious and  conventional.  The  laborer  is  de- 
spised not  for  being  dirty  but  because  he 
works.  Clean  collars  and  wristbands  are  de- 
sirable because  they  show  an  absence  of  manual 
activity.  The  advertisement  of  leisure  goes 
so  far  as  to  necessitate  the  existence  of  a  class 
attendant  upon  the  more  exalted,  which  also 
participates  in  the  benefits.  Leisure,  so  to 
speak,  spills  over.  The  flunkey  must  main- 
tain the  appearance  and  demeanor  of  an  in- 
dividual free  from  work,  at  any  rate  when 
seen  in  attendance  upon  the  larger  parasite. 
The  greatness  of  the  master  is  enhanced  if 
butler  and  footman  can  also  produce  the  illu- 
sion of  being  great  personages.  On  the  other 
hand,  those  who  toil  must  never  be  allowed  to 
forget  the  fact  that  they  are  low.  Even  serv- 
ant girls  who  escape  from  their  servitude  for 
a  weekly  outing  and  desire  for  that  short  time 
to  make  the  world  believe  by  dress  and  manner 
that  they  are  not  working,  need  to  be  criticised 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

and  even  repressed.  The  descending  scale  of 
respectability  manifests  many  examples  of 
dual  personality.  Perhaps  the  most  pathetic 
is  that  of  the  clerk.  He  is  under  the  painful 
necessity  of  combining  a  life  of  unspeakable 
drudgery  with  the  appearance  of  exalted  leis- 
ure. Practice,  however,  habituates  him,  with- 
out much  psychological  difficulty,  to  put  aside 
top  hat  and  frock  coat  when  attacking  his 
ledgers.  Imaginatively  he  dwells  in  the  world 
of  leisure.  This  makes  him  the  bulwark  of 
the  Conservative  party.  Other  professions 
that  cultivate  display  of  the  symbols  of  leisure 
are  those  that  depend  upon  humbug  for  their 
success,  such  as  those  of  law  and  medicine. 
There  is  nothing  more  valuable  than  to  let  your 
client  get  the  impression  that  you  do  not  really 
need  his  case.  The  vicarious  respectability  of 
the  clerk  is  also  seen  in  shop  assistants  and 
waiters.  Here  the  intention  is  to  advertise  the 
greatness  of  the  establishment  to  which  they 
belong.  There  must,  however,  be  some  show 
of  leisure  on  the  part  of  the  heads.  College 
professors  must  keep  apparent  the  respecta- 
bility of  their  institution  as  well  as  of  academic 


CONTEST  WITH  LEISURED  CLASS      153 

learning  which  is  esteemed  in  inverse  ratio  to 
its  utility.  Thus  respectability  shades  down  in 
terms  of  leisure  and  the  pretense  of  leisure, 
distinguishing  and  defining  the  social  classes 
until  the  navvy  is  reached,  and  even  he  finds 
the  means  of  impressing  his  superiority  upon 
somebody  else,  it  may  be  his  wife.  The  whole 
system  derives  from  and  centers  in  that  apex 
of  the  social  order,  the  not  inconsiderable  group 
who  own  the  land  and  therefore  the  people. 
Let  it  be  said  again  that  the  persons  con- 
cerned are  not  to  be  blamed.  The  rent  roll 
for  them  is  an  inexorable  determinant  of  their 
existence.  Often  a  lad  leaves  Oxford  with  an 
imagination  stimulated  by  the  world  he  faces 
and  resentful  that  life  can  never  have  for  him 
the  flavor  of  a  great  adventure,  that  his  hands 
can  never  know  the  joy  of  making  and  shap- 
ing things.  The  scheme  of  things  determined 
his  course  from  the  day  he  was  born,  and  not 
many  years  are  needed  to  settle  him  in  ac- 
quiescence and  maintenance  of  the  system. 
The  class  is  of  course  being  constantly  in- 
creased by  the  possessors  of  newly  made  for- 
tunes. Their  admission  to  the  ranks  of  leis- 


154       JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

ure  is  for  some  time  resented,  but  the  economic 
factor  on  which  the  whole  scheme  rests  is  all 
determining,  and  no  rich  man  can  be  for  long 
excluded  in  spite  of  the  vulgarity  which  his 
wealth  derives  from  recent  contact  with  labor. 
It  is  refreshing  to  know  at  least  one  rich 
man  who  played  the  role  badly.  Joseph  Fels 
was  never  able  to  see  that  the  humanity  beneath 
a  greasy  engineer's  suit  was  essentially  differ- 
ent from  his  own.  He  could  never  bring  him- 
self to  believe  that  it  did  not  matter  whether 
poor  children  were  fed  or  not.  He  knew  that 
if  these  people  had  their  due  there  would  be 
no  great  fortunes  to  expend  on  carriages, 
flunkeys,  great  houses,  expensive  dress  and 
charitable  subscriptions.  Directness  of  vision 
and  honesty  of  principle  made  impossible  for 
him  participation  in  the  great  masquerade. 
Behind  the  array  of  conventional  pretense  he 
recognized  the  sordid  form  of  the  world's 
greatest  injustice.  A  leisured  class  rides  upon 
the  backs  of  the  poor.  The  community  which 
displays  great  luxury  displays  a  corresponding 
degree  of  privation;  the  counterpart  of  the 
palace  is  the  hovel.  To  enable  any  individual 


CONTEST  WITH  LEISURED  CLASS      155 

to  flaunt  his  leisure,  numbers  are  doomed  to 
grinding  toil.  Confronted  with  this  situation, 
the  course  of  an  honest  man  is  simple.  One 
accepts  the  situation  or  one  does  not.  Joseph 
Fels  did  not. 


XII 

Personal  Propaganda 

rTIHE  great  value  of  the  budget  for  Mr. 
•*•  Fels  was  that  its  principle  when  fully  ap- 
plied would  give  opportunity  to  those  desiring 
work  and  would  force  the  leisured  into  some 
useful  occupation,  would  mark,  as  he  said,  "the 
greatest  national  industrial  revival  that  the 
world  has  ever  witnessed."  For  leisure  is  re- 
tained through  the  monopolization  of  resources 
that  rightly  used  would  be  communal.  "The 
tax,"  he  told  an  audience  in  Portland,  "will  be 
taken  off  industry  and  thrift  and  labor,  all  of 
which  will  be  stimulated.  Monopoly  will  be 
taxed  out  of  existence,  for  all  monopoly  is 
founded  on  land.  Competition  will  be  free 
.  .  .  the  leisured  classes  are  against  the  land 
tax  reform  because  it  will  destroy  their 
monopoly  in  land."  He  explained  how  the 
trusts  of  the  United  States  would  be  affected 
by  such  a  measure.  "There  is  the  oil  trust. 

166 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  157 

If  it  had  to  pay  taxes  on  its  great  oil  and  gas 
fields  at  their  real  value,  and  not  just  as  waste 
lands,  how  long  would  it  hold  them  out  of  the 
market  unproductively  ?  It  would  produce  all 
the  oil  it  could  sell,  and  the  kerosene  would  be 
cheap  to  the  poor  man  and  gasolene  to  the 
automobile  owner.  The  trust  would  have  to 
sell  the  lands  it  was  unable  to  use,  and  there 
would  no  longer  be  a  monopoly  in  oil." 

That  the  working  out  of  the  budget  was 
a  failure  Mr.  Pels  would  have  been  the  first 
to  admit.  The  reason  of  that  failure  seemed 
to  him  sufficiently  simple.  When  the  admin- 
istration of  its  principles  came  to  be  applied, 
there  was  a  lack  of  courage  for  which  he  had 
scarcely  been  prepared.  "He  is  not  really  a 
land-tax  man,"  he  wrote  of  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
three  years  later,  when  early  in  1913  the  con- 
clusions of  the  latter's  Land  Enquiry  Com- 
mittee were  published.  Mr.  Lloyd  George, 
in  his  view,  failed  at  the  critical  moment  to 
apply  consistently  the  principles  in  which  he 
had  declared  his  belief.  He  so  framed  the  de- 
tails of  the  measure  as  to  make  possible  endless 
delay  and  litigation.  Mr.  Fels  himself  would 


158      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

have  had  no  agreement  on  valuation  or  refer- 
ences to  a  court.  The  assessment  would  have 
been  made  once  and  for  all  by  government  ex- 
perts without  what  he  called  "the  fanatical 
appeal  to  a  court  prejudiced  beforehand" 
against  the  effort  the  budget  was  intended  to 
further.  It  was  to  him  a  disappointment  that 
so  fair  a  promise  should  have  issued  in  so 
meager  a  fulfillment. 

Whatever  disappointment  he  felt  was  lost 
in  the  activities  which  made  more  and  more 
demands  on  his  time.  Any  chronological 
record  of  his  movements  after  1909  becomes 
practically  impossible.  Roughly,  it  is  true  to 
say  that  half  the  year  was  spent  by  him  in  Eng- 
land and  half  in  America.  But  there  were 
two  long  Continental  visits  when  he  braved 
the  difficulties  of  language  and  tried  to  stimu- 
late the  organization  of  the  Single  Tax  move- 
ment in  Denmark,  France,  Sweden,  Germany, 
Italy  and  Spain.  In  1909-10,  he  toured 
through  most  of  the  Middle  West  of  the 
United  States.  In  the  following  winter  he 
was  speaking  through  the  Southern  States. 
In  1911-12,  he  toured  through  Canada  and  the 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  159 

Far  West.  His  time  was  filled  with  tireless 
activity.  He  wrote  countless  letters,  consid- 
ered schemes  of  propaganda,  visited  anyone 
from  whom  there  was  the  hope  of  assistance. 
He  did  not  hesitate  to  expose  himself  to  re- 
buff if  he  felt  that  eventually  he  might  be  able 
to  effect  some  good.  He  even  approached 
Mr.  Carnegie  twice  in  a  single  year  trying, 
of  course  vainly,  to  convince  that  unsparing 
philanthropist  that  his  right  hand  was  en- 
deavoring to  re-erect  what  his  left  hand  had 
destroyed.  He  attended  congresses,  meet- 
ings, lectures,  debates.  He  sought  out  the 
prominent  men  of  any  town  he  visited,  and  at- 
tempted their  conversion.  He  denounced  the 
rich,  including  himself,  unsparingly.  "We 
can't  get  rich,"  he  told  a  Chicago  audience, 
"under  present  conditions,  without  robbing 
somebody.  I  have  done  it;  you  are  doing  it 
now,  and  I  am  still  doing  it.  But  I  am  pro- 
posing to  spend  the  money  to  wipe  out  the 
system  by  which  I  made  it."  This  speech 
created  no  small  sensation  and  he  was  asked 
for  an  explanation  of  his  remarks ;  but  he  had 
nothing  to  explain.  Under  a  system  which 


160       JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

placed  a  premium  on  economic  exploitation, 
it  was  simply  impossible  for  a  man  to  make 
money  on  a  large  scale  by  fair  competition. 
"People  listen  to  me,"  he  told  an  interviewer, 
"when  I  say  this,  because  I  am  a  rich  man. 
Many  a  poor  man  has  said  exactly  the  same 
thing  and  suffered  imprisonment  for  sedition." 

Instances  abound  of  remarkable  events  on 
these  tours.  In  London  for  instance  he  per- 
suaded a  famous  American  statesman  to  visit 
the  offices  of  the  United  Committee,  and  the 
interview  Mr.  Fels  wrote  to  a  friend  is  not 
without  interest. 

"I  consider  him,"  he  wrote,  "an  ignoramus 
on  our  question  and  think  he  is  working  too 
much  on  the  preaching  track  to  be  an  open-eyed 
public  man.  I  went  to  see  him  at  Claridge's 
Hotel  and  talked  with  him  for  about  an  hour 
and  a  half.  He  knows  nothing  about  the  land 
question  or,  at  any  rate  does  not  show  it  by  his 
talk.  Finally,  as  he  said  Tom  L.  Johnson  in- 
sisted that  he  should  see  John  Paul,  I  took  him 
to  the  office  of  our  United  Committee  the  next 
morning.  .  .  .  After  a  little  general  talk,  Orr 
asked  a  couple  of  questions.  The  first  he  tried 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  161 

to  answer,  but  got  so  mixed  that  he  jumped 
up,  grabbed  the  telephone,  called  up  the  hotel 
and  asked  to  be  connected  with  his  wife's  room, 
when  he  inquired  of  her  whether  the  man  had 
come  and  then  said  he  would  be  there  in  fifteen 
minutes.  He  thereupon  jumped  up,  shook 
hands  with  all  of  us  and  slipped  out."  It  is 
not  difficult  to  understand  why  Mr.  Fels  re- 
fused to  be  bound  by  the  ordinary  ties  of  poli- 
tical association. 

An  incident  in  a  budget  meeting  is  not 
without  interest.  A  discussion  on  the  Single 
Tax  had  taken  place  and  questions  were  asked. 
The  following  interlude  occurred. 

"Major-General,"  who  occupied  a  front  seat  and 
had  followed  the  procedure  with  close  interest,  said, 
"Gentlemen,  to  get  the  matter  through,  I  am  a  pro- 
prietor of  some  waste  land,  and  I  would  like  to  know 
what  to  do  with  it.  I  don't  think  it  would  be  right 
to  tax  it." 

ME.  HEMMEEDE:     "What  sort  of  waste  land?" 

GENEEAL:     "Land  of  no  value." 

ME.  HEMMEEDE:  "If  it  is  of  no  value  then  the 
tax  would  not  hit  it." 

GENEEAL:  "I  understood  that  you  proposed 
that  all  land  should  be  taxed." 

MB.  HEMMEEDE  said  he  knew  of  a  case  of  waste 
land  rated  at  4s  and  5s  an  acre  and  when  the  town 


162      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

bought  it,  they  had  to  pay  £1,000  per  acre.     They 

would  like  to  know  if  this  piece  of  waste  land  had 

any  ratable  value. 

GENERAL:  "No,  it  does  not  produce  anything." 
MB.  HEMMERDE:  "Could  it  produce  anything?" 
GENERAL:  "No.  I  want  to  know  what  to  do 

with  it.     I  understood  you  proposed  that  the  whole 

of  the  land  should  be  taxed." 

MR.  HEMMERDE:     "Certainly." 

GENERAL:     "And  that  all  land  has  a  value." 

MR.  FELS:     "Would  you  give  it  to  anyone  who 

wanted  it?" 

GENERAL  :     "No." 

MR.  HEMMERDE  :     "We  could  get  the  surveyor  of 

taxes  to  put  a  value  on  it." 

GENERAL:     "I  would  say  it  was  valueless.     It 

does  not  produce  anything." 

MR.  HEMMERDE:     "It  must  have  some  value,  or 

you  would  not  wish  to  keep  it." 

GENERAL:  "I  like  to  look  at  it."  [Laughter.] 
MR.  FELS  :  "Suppose  someone  else  was  prepared 

to  do  something  to  get  .  .  .  looking  at  it,  would  you 

let  them  have  it?" 
GENERAL:  "No." 
MR.  FELS:     "May  I  ask  whether  you  have  ever 

received  an  offer  for  the  land?" 
GENERAL:     "No." 

MR.  FELS  :  "Would  you  take  £1  an  acre  for  it?" 
GENERAL:  "No.  It  doesn't  produce  anything. 

I  don't  want  to  part  with  it." 

MR.  FELS:     "Would  you  take  £2  an  acre?" 

GENERAL:     "I  don't  want  to  sell  it." 

MR.  FELS:     "Would  you  take  £5  an  acre  for  a 

plot  in  the  center  of  it?" 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  163 

GENERAL:     "I  don't  want  to  sell  it." 
ME.  FELS:     "Would  you  take  £20?" 
GENERAL:     "I  don't  want  to  sell  it.     I  like  to 

look  at  it." 

MR.    FELS:     "Then    it    has    a    value."     [Loud 

laughter.] 

There  could  hardly  have  been  an  apter  il- 
lustration of  what  the  budget  was  to  effect. 

Almost  equally  characteristic  was  a  letter 
to  a  wealthy  American  who  wrote  criticising 
his  propaganda.  The  American  may  be 
named  Brown. 

My  dear  Brown: 

I  have  held  yours  until  I  cooled  down,  because 
there  are  some  things  in  it  that  are  not  fair  to  your- 
self. My  state  of  mind  has  cooled;  here  is  what  I 
have  to  say,  not  from  the  rich  man  to  his  fellow  rich 
man,  but  from  the  naked  Joseph  Fels  to  the  naked 
John  Brown. 

You  freely  say  that  the  economic  philosophy  of 
Henry  George  is  a  practical  and  just  method  of  tax- 
ation and  deserves  the  support  of  all  right-minded 
men,  and  that  the  introduction  of  the  Single  Tax  is 
one  of  the  greatest  tasks  to  be  undertaken. 

You  then  go  on  to  say  that  you  would  like  to  help 
me  more,  but  cannot  except  at  times  by  writing  upon 
the  subject,  because,  being  no  longer  a  young  man, 
you  have  not  the  power  and  strength  that  you  had  in 
bygone  days.  You  also  refer  to  other  responsibili- 
ties which,  you  tell  me,  "weigh  heavily  upon  you." 


164       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

You  wind  up  this  particular  paragraph  of  your  let- 
ter by  saying  that  the  Lloyd  George  Insurance  Bill 
absorbs  you. 

The  above  are  your  reasons  for  not  helping  finan- 
cially, though  what  your  age  and  interest  in  the  In- 
surance Bill  have  to  do  with  the  matter,  I  cannot  con- 
ceive. 

Now  let  us  see  where  the  responsibility  of  age  and 
the  Insurance  Bill  will  defeat  the  thing  you  freely 
acknowledge  as  one  of  the  best  in  the  world.  You 
are  a  millionaire,  have  always  been  a  millionaire,  so 
far  as  I  know,  and  perhaps  as  long  as  you  can  re- 
member. You  live,  when  in  London,  at  a  swell  hotel, 
keep  a  motor  car,  private  secretary,  and  other  more 
or  less  useful  adjuncts  to  a  rich  man,  including  the 
hob-nobbing  with  other  rich  men,  which,  of  course, 
means  a  large  expenditure  of  money.  In  New  York 

you  live  at  the Hotel,  as  you  tell  me,  which,  I 

take  it,  means  $100  a  week.  You  perhaps  spend  in 
luxuries  $50,000.  To  you  they  may  not  be  luxuries 
because  you  have  never  known  anything  else,  but  they 
are  luxuries  to  me,  and  to  others  who  have  a  con- 
ception of  the  right  use  of  money. 

You  got  your  money — as  I  freely  acknowledge  I 
got  mine — through  one  or  other  of  the  various  mo- 
nopolies and  special  privileges.  You  play  with  the 
matter  of  charity  and  philanthropy,  and  try  to  com- 
fort your  immortal  soul  and  stifle  your  conscience 
with  the  idea  that  you  are  doing  something.  Well! 
you  are.  You  are  making  matters  worse,  and  it 
won't  matter  much  to  the  world  in  general.  .  .  . 

Now  I  am  looking  for  millionaires,  and  I  prefer 
American  millionaires.  I  want  each  one  of  them  to 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  165 

put  up  $100,000  a  year  to  help  free  men,  and  make 
such  as  you  and  myself  impossible.  ,  .  . 

My  dear  Brown,  had  you  not  better  tear  the  veil 
from  your  eyes?  It  is  a  simple  process.  Just  look 
at  yourself  in  the  clear  light  of  truth  and  personal 
responsibility.  I  am  fully  aware  that  this  letter 
may  lose  me  an  acquaintance,  but  I  am  not  pleading 
for  you  to  help  me.  I  am  pleading  for  you  to  help 
men. 

To  Mr.  Carnegie  the  first  letter,  of  June 
21,  1910,  is  as  follows: 

Andrew  Carnegie,  Esq., 

Skibo  Castle,  N.  B. 
My  dear  Sir: 

An  item  in  the  enclosed  paper  has  just  caught  my 
eye.  Are  the  statements  therein  correct?  If  so, 
your  memory  is  a  little  short,  you  and  I  having  met 
some  five  years  ago  at  Charing  Cross  Station  by  ap- 
pointment, as  I  was  then  anxious  to  interest  you  in 
the  farm  labor  colony  movement  here  which  I  was 
then  promoting.  I  need  hardly  say  that  I  was  pro- 
moting that  movement  to  create  land  hunger,  and  not 
because  I  considered  the  establishment  of  such  colo- 
nies a  cure  for  the  poverty  question ! 

Taking  it  for  granted  that  you  are  correctly  re- 
ported, I  plead  guilty  to  the  charge  that  my  object 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  Single  Tax  accord- 
ing to  the  Henry  George  philosophy ;  but  it  is  not  in 
a  resuscitated  form  at  all,  as  Henry  George  was 
never  more  alive  than  at  present,  even  though  no 
longer  with  us  in  the  flesh. 


166      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

I  am  glad  to  note  that  you  knew  George,  and  that 
you  appreciated  his  integrity.  I  hope,  however,  you 
are  not  correctly  reported  in  the  statement  that  you 
could  never  see  anything  but  absurdity  in  the  Single 
Tax,  for  I  have  heretofore  given  you  credit  for  hav- 
ing brains  of  quite  an  unusual  character. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  George  was  highly  appre- 
ciative of  the  fact  that  you  told  him  his  philosophy 
was  impossible  of  l»eing  carried  out  in  the  States,  but 
am  equally  sure  he  did  not  agree  with  you,  as  we  have 
carried  the  fight  for  his  philosophy  into  one  of  the 
States  of  the  Union  where  the  American  farmer  pre- 
dominates, and,  in  my  opinion,  we  shall  have  a  large 
measure  of  the  Single  Tax  in  that  State  in  1912  — 
I  refer  to  Oregon,  which  is  really  as  important  as  an 
agricultural  State  as  Iowa,  which  you  are  reported 
to  have  said  that  George  invaded,  but  that  his  views 
were  so  ridiculed  by  the  people  as  to  cause  him  to 
conclude  that  his  campaign  was  useless.  I  don't  be- 
lieve this,  either!  No  work  done  anywhere  at  any 
time  for  furthering  the  cause  of  economic  freedom 
was  ever  hopeless;  and  you — of  all  men — should 
know  this,  seeing  that  you  have  done  so  much  to  make 
it  hopeless,  without  succeeding  in  breaking  down  the 
courage  of  the  common  people. 

I  do  not  doubt  that  your  hobby  lies  in  free  libra- 
ries, though  these  "free"  libraries  are  perhaps  not  so 
free  as  you  would  like  to  believe,  as  all  I  know  of  are 
a  permanent  charge  on  the  local  rates,  and,  to  this 
extent,  are  not  free,  but  are  a  noose  around  the  necks 
of  the  common  people,  for  which  they  will  yet  rise 
and  curse  you — indeed,  they  have  in  many  cases  al- 
ready done  so. 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  167 

I  do  not  doubt  that,  during  the  money  panic  in 
New  York,  you  could  have  made  an  extra  $50,000,- 
000,  but  I  can  hardly  be  asked  to  respect  your  reason 
for  not  making  it !  Somebody  else  probably  made  it, 
and  did  his  share  towards  further  choking  the  free- 
dom of  the  people ! 

Your  frank  expression  of  want  of  sympathy  for 
the  so-called  submerged  tenth  is  in  keeping  with  the 
balance  of  the  statements  in  the  enclosed  article.  Of 
course,  you  have  little  sympathy  with  the  submerged 
tenth.  Indeed,  I  do  not  know  of  anyone  who  has  ex- 
pressed his  soft  impeachment  of  your  sentiments  in 
this  connection,  and  I  am  confirmed  in  this  by  the 
fact  that  you  have  done  so  much  during  your  life  to 
submerge  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  tenth.  I  am, 
too,  not  insensible  to  your  sympathy  with  the  swim- 
ming tenth,  who,  as  you  say,  are  striving  to  help 
themselves;  but  this  is  only  carrying  out  your  own 
philosophy,  as  you  belong  to  the  swimming  tenth  of 
those  who  have  risen  on  the  backs  of  their  fellows. 

Natural  laws  do,  in  the  end,  control  such  matters, 
as  you  well  say,  but  they  control  them  in  quite  a  dif- 
ferent way  from  that  which  you  are  so  much  in  the 
habit  of  propagating. 

You  make  an  absolute  mis-statement,  however,  in 
saying  that  the  deserving  rise  out  of  their  poverty, 
and  save  their  own  respect  from  the  mire.  Are  you 
not  really  talking  through  your  hat  in  making  such 
a  mis-statement,  when  you,  as  a  man  long  immersed 
in  monopoly  and  special  privilege,  must  know  that 
the  submerged  tenth  (indeed  in  Great  Britain,  the 
submerged  third)  is  submerged  by  monopoly  and  spe- 
cial privilege ;  I  refer  especially  to  land  monopoly. 


168       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Just  recall  a  portion  of  your  own  life,  and  the 
thousands — yea,  tens  of  thousands  ! — of  men,  women 
and  children  you  have  done  so  much  to  submerge ;  re- 
call the  Homestead  strikes,  and  the  hundreds  of  labor 
wars  in  which  you  and  your  companies  were,  and  are 
still,  engaged! 

You  will  answer  this  by  saying  that  you  are  no 
longer  in  business ;  but  that  is  hardly  a  correct  way 
of  putting  it,  seeing  that  you  converted  your  mo- 
nopolies into  5  per  cent,  bonds,  and  still  draw  your 
interest  from  the  sufferings  of  men,  women  and  chil- 
dren. The  fact  that  you  have  made  50  or  100  men 
of  your  own  build  millionaires  merely  adds  to  the 
agony  by  spreading  the  suffering,  and  the  only  way 
you  can  remedy  the  matter  is  to  stop  spreading  suf- 
fering by  putting  your  money  and  great  abilities  to 
the  task  of  destroying  the  power  of  one  man,  or  set 
of  men,  to  stamp  under  foot  the  liberty  and  free  will 
of  thousands  of  other  men. 

The  economic  philosophy  of  Henry  George  is  now 
a  living  issue  in  the  world — and  not  an  inconsequen- 
tial exhibit  of  it — and  in  last  year's  British  Budget, 
the  land  valuation  clauses  may  even  touch  your  own 
pocket  through  Skibo  Castle  and  all  the  enterprises 
or  investments  in  which  you  may  have  an  interest  in 
Great  Britain. 

In  conclusion,  I  am  writing  you  this  letter  direct, 
instead  of  spreading  it  in  the  pages  of  newspapers, 
and  I  do  so  in  the  hope  that  you  will  write  me  fear- 
lessly and  frankly;  and,  if  I  have  made  a  single 
charge  in  this  letter  which  is  not  well  within  the  truth, 
I  will  personally  apologize  to  you  and  withdraw  the 
part  that  is  untrue.  Yours  very  truly, 

(Signed)       JOSEPH  FELS. 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  169 

The  second  letter  was  sent  six  months  later, 
shortly  after  Mr.  Carnegie  had  made  his  gift 
of  ten  million  dollars  to  the  International 
Peace  Foundation.  Mr.  Fels  wrote  to  him 
and  pointed  out  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
fatal  effects  of  the  method  of  peace  propa- 
ganda pursued  by  Mr.  Carnegie.  "You  have 
given,"  he  *  wrote,  "ten  million  dollars  to  an 
international  peace  fund.  The  object  is 
worthy.  The  donor's  intentions  are  good. 
But  a  worthy  object  and  a  good  intention  can- 
not alone  make  a  gift  a  real  benefaction.  Do- 
nations, no  matter  how  large,  to  suppress  evils, 
no  matter  how  great,  can  accomplish  nothing 
unless  they  should  be  used  to  remove  the  funda- 
mental cause  of  the  evils. 

"Aggressive  warfare  is  always  the  result 
of  what  appears  to  be  an  economic  necessity. 
The  last  great  \var,  that  between  Russia  and 
Japan,  will  serve  as  an  illustration.  These 
two  nations  fought  over  the  possession  of 
Korea.  Russia  wanted  Korea  because  she 
feels  the  need  of  a  seaport  accessible  all  the 
year  round,  that  she  may  be  able  to  export  and 
import  merchandise  freely  without  being  both- 


170      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

ered  with  any  tariff  restrictions  other  than 
those  of  her  own  making.  Japan  felt  that  her 
independence  would  be  threatened  —  that  is, 
she  realized  that  her  refusal  to  trade  freely 
with  the  rest  of  the  world  would  create  a 
temptation  for  other  nations  sufficiently  strong 
to  deprive  her  of  independence. 

"If  conditions  of  absolute  international 
free  trade  had  prevailed,  Russia  would  no  more 
have  felt  the  lack  of  an  accessible  seaport  than 
does  the  State  of  Ohio.  If  Japan  maintained 
no  custom  houses,  the  power  that  would  try  to 
rob  her  of  her  independence  would  have  noth- 
ing to  gain  and  very  much  to  lose.  Henry 
George  made  this  clear  in  his  Protection  or 
Free  Trade. 

'What,'  he  wrote,  'are  the  real  substantial 
advantages  of  this  Union  of  ours?  Are  they 
not  summed  up  in  the  absolute  freedom  of 
trade  which  it  secures,  and  the  community  of 
interests  that  grows  out  of  this  freedom?  If 
our  states  were  fighting  each  other  with  hostile 
tariffs  and  a  citizen  could  not  cross  a  state 
boundary  line  without  having  his  baggage 
searched,  or  a  book  printed  in  New  York  could 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  171 

not  be  sent  across  the  river  to  Jersey  City  un- 
til duty  was  paid,  how  long  would  our  Union 
last,  or  what  would  it  be  worth?  The  true 
benefits  of  our  Union,  the  true  basis  of  the  in- 
terstate peace  it  secures,  is  that  it  has  pre- 
vented the  establishment  of  state  tariffs,  and 
given  us  free  trade  over  the  better  part  of  a 
continent.' 

"The  'need  of  foreign  markets'  which  is  so 
frequently  used  as  an  argument  to  justify 
wars  of  criminal  aggression  is  a  'need'  that 
would  not  be  felt  if  the  aggressing  nation  en- 
forced justice  at  home.  Our  own  war  in  the 
Philippines  would  not  have  received  popular 
indorsement  but  for  the  false  hopes  of  'new 
foreign  markets'  held  out  to  commercial  inter- 
ests. This  bait  was  held  out  and  was  swal- 
lowed, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  potential  new 
markets  exist  here  at  home. 

"The  unemployed  and  partially  employed 
population  and  the  underpaid  workers  form  a 
potential  market  far  greater  than  any  war  of 
conquest  could  secure.  To  secure  this  new 
market,  labor  need  but  be  given  access  to  the 
natural  resources  now  withheld  by  private  mo- 


172       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

nopolists.  The  vacant  and  the  partially  used 
city  lots,  and  the  valuable  mining  and  agri- 
cultural lands  held  out  of  use  for  speculation, 
are  causing  poverty,  unemployment,  and  low 
wages.  The  result  is  under-consumption  of 
manufactured  products,  which  manufacturers 
and  merchants  are  bamboozled  into  believing 
can  be  relieved  by  forcing  the  people  of  weaker 
nations  to  purchase. 

"Then  again,  the  interests  which  dragged 
the  United  States  into  the  disgraceful  Philip- 
pine adventure  would  not  and  could  not  have 
succeeded  in  doing  so,  had  not  the  existence 
of  land  monopoly  at  home  made  it  evident  that 
the  same  institution  would  surely  be  continued 
by  our  government  in  the  Philippines. 

"Will  the  Carnegie  fund  be  used  to  any 
extent  in  abolishing  land  monopoly,  thus 
checking  any  possible  repetition  of  successful 
appeals  to  commercial  cupidity  in  support  of 
land-grabbing  schemes  abroad?  Hardly. 

"A  gift  of  ten  millions  to  secure  relief  from 
malaria  in  a  swampy  district,  which  could  not 
be  used  to  secure  the  draining  of  the  swamps, 
or  the  destruction  of  the  mosquitoes  would  be 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  173 

just  as  effective  as  your  peace  donation." 
It  goes  without  saying  that  Mr.  Fels'  ad- 
vice was  disregarded ;  we  cannot  even  find  that 
his  letter  received  a  reply.  Perhaps,  as  he 
suggested,  he  had  made  a  proposal  too  radical 
even  for  a  retired  millionaire.  But  it  was  not 
only  with  the  powerful  that  his  enormous  cor- 
respondence in  these  years  concerned  itself. 
He  received  every  day  scores  of  letters  offer- 
ing suggestions,  criticising,  cursing,  request- 
ing information.  The  first  he  considered  al- 
ways with  a  courteous  attention.  To  the  criti- 
cisms he  replied  for  the  most  part  in  an  amus- 
ingly optimistic  vein.  Those  who  cursed  were 
amply  repaid  in  their  own  coin;  Joseph  Fels 
never  hesitated  to  tell  any  man  in  full  and 
plain  terms  exactly  what  he  thought  of  him. 
To  those  who  asked  for  information  he  always 
replied  in  elaborate  detail,  and  a  separate 
packet  of  literature,  with  a  copy  of  Progress 
and  Poverty  would,  as  a  rule,  accompany  his 
reply.  His  ideas  and  views  were  embodied  in 
many  short  articles  and  public  letters.  It  was 
his  habit  never  to  let  any  occasion  pass  when 
the  theory  of  the  Single  Tax  could  be  driven 


174       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

home.  A  housing  bill  was  proposed;  he  would 
urge  that  the  present  assessment  on  improve- 
ments simply  penalized  the  tenant.  A  park 
was  presented  to  some  neighborhood ;  he  would 
point  out  the  benefit  it  conferred  on  the  land- 
lords of  the  locality.  One  grows  almost  be- 
wildered at  the  multifarious  and  incessant  ac- 
tivities he  undertook.  He  arranged,  at  one 
time,  that  every  elector  in  Great  Britain  should 
receive  a  bundle  of  Single  Tax  literature.  He 
attended  practically  every  Trade  Union  Con- 
gress from  1909  to  distribute  leaflets  to  the 
members.  He  gave  evidence  to  the  land  com- 
mittee of  the  Labor  Party.  He  went  to  radi- 
cal congresses  of  every  kind  in  the  hope  that 
they  might  be  turned  to  good  use.  If  a  friend 
started  a  journal  of  any  description,  he  clam- 
ored to  be  allowed  to  explain  his  cause  therein. 
It  mattered  nothing  that  the  purpose  of  the 
paper  was  different  from,  even  on  occasion, 
antipathetic  to  the  Single  Tax.  If  the  pur- 
pose was  different,  then  his  article  would  in- 
troduce a  little  variety;  and  if  it  was  antipa- 
thetic the  editor  could  point  out  his  errors  in 
a  leader. 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  175 

Two  characteristic  tales  may  be  told  in  this 
connection:  In  1910  Mr.  Fels  persuaded  Tom 
L.  Johnson,  the  famous  mayor  of  Cleveland, 
and  a  close  friend,  to  pay  a  visit  to  him  in  Eng- 
land. While  they  were  there,  Johnson  noticed 
that  a  Free  Trade  Congress  of  all  nations  was 
to  be  held  in  Antwerp,  and  the  idea  occurred 
to  Mr.  Fels  of  using  it  for  propaganda  pur- 
poses. To  receive  credentials  from  the  Ameri- 
can Free  Trade  League  was  the  matter  only  of 
a  cable.  Mr.  Fels  took  over  a  band  of  thirty 
stalwarts,  eager  to  declare  their  enthusiasm 
for  a  Free  Trade  that  went  far  beyond  the 
ideals  of  most  of  its  professed  adherents  at 
Antwerp.  At  first,  the  Congress  was  ada- 
mant to  his  insistence  that  the  Single  Tax  was 
merely  the  logical  development  of  Free  Trade 
ideas ;  it  could  not  hear  him.  Then  procedural 
objections  were  urged.  No  place  had  been  set 
for  him  in  the  program  —  were  he  to  speak, 
all  arrangements  would  be  upset.  The  myriad 
official  difficulties  were  coldly  set  before  him. 
But  Mr.  Fels  was  not  thus  easily  daunted.  A 
tribute  was  to  be  paid  to  Richard  Cobden — 
Cobden  who,  seeing  the  land-hunger  of  Eng- 


176       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

land  had  declared  his  belief  in  Free  Trade  in 
land.  Mr.  Fels  saw  his  opportunity.  No 
more  enthusiastic  appreciation  of  Cobden  was 
paid  than  his,  but  it  combined  also,  and  skil- 
fully, a  eulogy  of  Henry  George  as  the  man 
who  had  logically  carried  out  Cobden's  con- 
clusions. And  no  member  left  the  Congress 
without  ample  literature  upon  the  subject. 
"It  was  the  best  piece  of  work  I  have  yet 
done,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "we  came  near  to 
stampeding  the  Convention.  I  feel  pretty 
sure  that  Henry  George  was  never  so  near 
coming  into  his  own  as  now — in  any  country. 
It  is  the  struggle  of  the  century,  and  the  most 
inspiring  struggle,  too." 

His  other  exploit  was  suggested  by  the 
Antwerp  adventure.  An  International  Con- 
ference on  Unemployment  was  held  in  Paris 
in  September,  1910,  and  Mr.  Fels,  with  a  large 
box  of  literature,  freely  distributed  later,  was 
in  attendance.  The  conference  was  divided 
into  three  sections,  on  the  statistics  of  unem- 
ployment, on  labor  exchange,  and  on  unem- 
ployment insurance.  He  spoke  at  length  in 
all  three.  In  the  first,  he  urged  that  the  time 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  177 

had  passed  when  they  need  bother  about  the 
actual  extent  of  unemployment.  The  age 
tended  to  choke  itself  in  a  series  of  "splutter- 
ing investigations"  which  resulted  in  nothing 
save  satisfaction  to  the  investigators.  They 
knew  that  there  was  serious  unemployment; 
that  was  sufficient  to  make  them  anxious  to  get 
ahead.  He  objected  to  labor  exchanges  and 
to  unemployment  insurance  because  they  were 
beginning  the  problem  at  the  wrong  end ;  they 
assumed  the  inevitability  of  unemployment 
and  then  attempted  its  minimization.  He  was 
not  content  with  that.  He  assumed  that  it 
could  be  prevented  by  the  adoption  of  the  Sin- 
gle Tax.  Then  the  Conference  heard  some 
bitter  home-truths  about  satisfaction  with  pal- 
liatives. He  ended  by  an  appeal  for  converts 
to  his  crusade.  He  wrote  of  this  Conference 
to  a  friend:  "Of  course  you  will  know  what 
I  had  to  say  on  these  things.  I  take  it  we 
cannot  do  better,  wherever  possible,  than  by 
attending  all  such  conferences  and  showing 
those  assembled  the  utter  futility  of  palliative 
measures,  and  the  absolute  necessity  of  attack- 
ing unemployment  at  its  base.  I  do  not  think 


178       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

I  ever  before  felt  more  bitter  against  a  set 
of  well-dressed,  well-fed  people  who  did  not 
know  what  they  were  talking  about,  and  I  im- 
parted as  much  bitterness  to  what  I  said  as  I 
knew  how."  He  accomplished  something  more 
on  this  journey  than  mere  skirmishing.  "The 
most  interesting  incident  of  my  Paris  trip  was 
that  I  had  to  inaugurate  the  first  Single  Tax 
League  in  France.  .  .  .  The  fact  that  the 
Physiocrats  before  the  great  Revolution 
enunciated  what  practically  became  the  Henry 
George  philosophy  made  it  peculiarly  interest- 
ing." Then  followed  a  characteristic  thought: 
"Whenever  you  have  an  odd  ten  minutes  to 
spare,  write  Georges  Darien,  the  secretary  of 
the  new  League,  an  encouraging  letter;  per- 
haps Eggleston  or  some  other  of  the  chaps  will 
do  it  too."  It  was  this  initiation  of  comrade- 
ship in  the  movement  which  was  not  the  least 
valuable  of  Joseph  Fels'  gifts  to  it. 

It  was  to  this  friend,  Mr.  U'Ren  of  Ore- 
gon, that  Mr.  Fels  wrote  a  letter  that  deserves 
reproduction  in  full,  because  nothing  shows 
more  clearly  the  trend  of  his  political  thought 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  179 

at  this  time.     It  makes  clear,  too,  how  in- 
tensely he  felt  upon  this  subject: 

"You  were  very  good,"  he  wrote,  "to  write 
me  so  fully  and  freely  on  your  opinion  of  my 
contentions  as  to  the  open  agitation  of  our 
question  in  all  its  baldness.  No  one  I  can  re- 
call could  have  done  it  better,  or  been  more 
patient  about  it.  Thank  you  from  the  very 
bottom  of  my  heart.  You're  one  who,  seeing 
the  justice  of  things  in  its  right  relations,  gives 
his  friend  of  his  plenty,  and  opens  his  own 
reservoir  of  knowledge  freely  for  his  friend's 
guidance.  I  value  what  you  write  to  me,  and 
it  will  serve  me  well  in  the  work  to  which  I 
have  consecrated  my  life  —  I  say  consecrated, 
for  so  I  consider  devotion  to  the  high  and  no- 
ble cause  in  which  we  find  ourselves  engaged. 
Surely  no  nobler  or  greater  has  yet  crossed 
the  horizon  of  the  thinker,  or  the  saint  or  sin- 
ner. Happily,  too,  one  lives  in  an  atmosphere 
which  is  not  poisoned  by  fear  of  the  stake  or 
guillotine  these  days,  though  intolerance  and 
ignorance  and  slavishness  to  opinion  still  find 
lodgment  in  the  breasts  of  millions  of  people. 


180       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

One  often  thinks  these  are  equally  bad,  con- 
sidering the  high  state  of  civilization  to  which 
we  are  supposed  to  have  attained. 

"Your  letter  gives  one  to  think.  I'll  keep 
it  by  me  for  a  time  —  then  I'll  make  dupli- 
cates and  submit  them  to  a  number  of  our  col- 
leagues. Perhaps,  by  and  by,  others  will 
come  up  to  the  point  of  seeing  the  vision  you 
outline ;  it  is  an  alluring  dream  for  the  present. 
But  who  shall  say  that  dreams  which  hold  the 
germ  of  substantiality,  as  this  one  does,  are 
impossible  of  materialization,  even  in  the  short 
span  of  our  own  lives?  In  considering  this 
thing,  I  have  taken  on  a  new  lease  of  life,  and 
hope,  and  assurance.  And  so,  though  I  have 
set  myself  to  seeing  human  freedom  as  an  es- 
tablished fact,  in  one  or  more  lands,  during 
the  next  twenty  years,  I  am  much  inclined  to 
wipe  out  the  time  limit,  and  to  declare  boldly, 
'I'll  see  human  freedom.' 

"The  mere  hint  of  the  prospect  has  given 
me  greater  happiness  during  the  last  three 
years  than  I  can  recall  of  the  previous  53. 
There,  you  have  my  age. 

"The  suggestion  you  outline  for  Pennsyl- 


PERSONAL  PROPAGANDA  181 

vania  is  most  alluring  —  Pennsylvania,  my 
own  State.  It  is  a  thing  well  worth  the  doing 
—  no,  the  trying  to  do,  even  though  one  may 
not  see  it  done.  Perhaps  (who  knows?)  I  may 
find  other  men  who  will  also  see  the  vision  to 
help  with  their  purses.  There  are  more  and 
more  devoted  souls,  who  are  glad  to  give  them- 
selves, coming  to  the  front  daily,  hourly. 
There  are  few  men  given  to  view  this  great 
work  going  on  in  so  many  countries  as  I  am. 
It  all  makes  me  very  humble  and  very  thank- 
ful. I'm  sure  you  understand. 

"I  seem  to  have  completely  changed  in  the 
last  three  years  in  many  directions.  Perhaps 
this  is  caused  by  my  earnest  effort  to  see 
through  the  eyes  of  other  men,  of  other  na- 
tions, with  other  viewpoints  than  mine.  I  be- 
lieve I  am  more  patient  with  the  opinions  of 
others,  and  perhaps,  too,  the  vision  has  en- 
larged. 

"It  is  in  my  plan  to  go  and  see  you  at  your 
work-bench,  in  your  own  shop  and  among  your 
own  people.  A  man  is  seen  more  clearly  in 
his  own  environment,  and  I  am  hoping  to  leave 
for  the  West  early  in  December.  I  must  get 


182       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

up  to  a  number  of  the  Canadian  towns,  cer- 
tainly Toronto,  Winnipeg,  and  Vancouver. 
I  am  promising  myself  to  raise  hell,  and  part 
of  the  $10,000  Kiefer  is  still  praying  for,  to 
round  off  his  work.  It  may  amount  to  prey- 
ing for  it,  but  I  don't  mind  that.  It  is  simply 
robbing  in  a  good  cause." 


XIII 

The  Fels  Fund  Commission 

UNTIL  the  beginning  of  1909,  that  is,  for 
the  first  four  years  of  his  connection  with 
the  Single  Tax  movement,  Mr.  Fels  was  con- 
tent to  work  through  the  different  organiza- 
tions already  in  existence.  He  helped  them 
time  and  again  with  funds,  speeches,  articles. 
Yet  he  was  not  altogether  satisfied  with  their 
activity.  The  conviction  grew  upon  him  that 
the  movement  suffered  seriously  from  decen- 
tralization and  disconnectedness.  It  seemed 
to  bear  no  obvious  relation  to  movements  akin 
to  itself.  It  had  economic,  but  not  political  sig- 
nificance. This,  of  course,  was  true  mainly  of 
the  United  States;  in  Great  Britain  the  pur- 
pose of  the  United  Committee  had  been  the 
steady  permeation  of  political  parties.  But  in 
America,  particularly  since  the  death  of  Henry 
George,  though  Single  Taxers  had  not  lost 
any  of  their  enthusiasm,  Mr.  Fels  felt  very 

183 


184       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

keenly  that  they  had  lost  much  of  their  direc- 
tion. The  movement  tended  to  expend  itself 
in  the  reading  of  papers,  in  colonization  experi- 
ments, in  social  functions  at  which  Single 
Taxers  might  discuss  a  coming  golden  age, 
which,  for  the  most  part,  they  did  little 
or  nothing  to  forward.  The  movement,  in 
fact,  seemed  to  have  decreased  both  in  vitality 
and  in  force.  People  in  the  United  States  did 
not  discuss  its  principles  as  they  had  done  in 
George's  lifetime.  Single  Taxers  were  as 
prominent  in  opposition  to  socialism  as  they 
were  in  the  advocacy  of  their  own  doctrine. 
Early  in  1908,  Mr.  Fels  began  seriously  to 
cast  about  for  means  to  put  a  stop  to  what  he 
called  "the  possibility  of  economic  and  intel- 
lectual dry-rot."  Mr.  Bolton  Hall  provided 
him  with  the  opportunity  he  desired. 

Early  in  January,  1909,  Mr.  Hall  wrote  to 
Mr.  Fels  and  asked  his  assistance  in  a  coloniza- 
tion movement  in  which  he  was  interested.  To 
that  letter  Mr.  Fels  replied  from  London  as 
follows : 

"Your  letter  regarding  the  use  of  the  'lit- 
tle lands'  has  just  reached  me,  and  I  believe 


THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION       185 

it  is  a  move  in  the  right  direction.  For  my 
part,  I  am  a  sincere  believer  in  the  taxation  of 
land  values,  and  while  this  'little  land*  proposi- 
tion of  yours  is  not  the  most  direct  means  to 
'get  back  to  land,'  it  works  in  that  direction. 
Anything  that  creates  land  hunger  must  of 
necessity  put  before  the  public  the  unreason- 
ableness of  our  present  system  of  taxation,  and 
the  certainty  that  it  must  be  reformed. 

"And  because  of  my  belief  that  the  time  is 
ripe  to  spread  information  on  land  reform  in 
general,  you  may  draw  on  me  for  an  advance 
of  $5,000  in  that  behalf,  and  I  will  agree  to 
donate  $25,000  each  successive  year  for  the 
next  five  years  towards  a  propaganda,  pro- 
vided others  can  be  found  to  give  an  equal 
amount  each  year.  In  other  words,  I  will 
spend  $125,000  altogether,  to  be  under  the 
charge  of  a  committee  of  land  reformers,  pro- 
vided others  will  contribute  likewise. 

"You  can  make  the  movement  so  broad 
that  men  like  Mr.  J.  Pierpont  Morgan,  Mr. 
Andrew  Carnegie,  Mr.  James  J.  Hill,  and 
other  equally  conservative  men  can  stand  with 
us  on  the  same  platform." 


186       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

This  letter  is  the  origin  of  the  Joseph  Pels 
Fund  Commission  of  America.  Mr.  Hall 
showed  the  offer  to  a  group  of  friends  and  they 
founded  the  organization  which  now  bears  Mr. 
Fels'  name.  An  advisory  committee,  to  which 
George  Foster  Peabody,  Louis  F.  Post,  then 
editor  of  The  Public  and  now  Assistant  Secre- 
tary of  Labor  in  Mr.  Wilson's  administration, 
Bolton  Hall,  Henry  George,  Jr.,  then  a  mem- 
ber of  Congress,  and  Bishop  Williams  gave 
their  adherence,  was  formed.  In  addition  to 
this  committee  was  the  actual  working  Com- 
mittee entrusted  with  the  control  and  disposal 
of  the  Fund.  To  this  belonged  Jackson  H. 
Ralston,  Lincoln  Steffens,  most  militant  of 
American  radicals,  Frederic  C.  Howe,  now 
Commissioner  of  Immigration  in  New  York, 
and  then  in  the  famous  "cabinet"  of  Tom  L. 
Johnson,  and  Mr.  George  A.  Briggs.  Daniel 
Kiefer,  probably,  as  Mr.  Fels  once  said,  the 
"most  efficient  mendicant  in  the  United 
States,"  was  appointed  its  chairman. 

Two  things  must  be  emphasized.  The 
Commission  attached,  despite  his  protest,  Mr. 
Fels'  name  to  its  work,  because  they  believed 


THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION       187 

that  his  position  in  the  business  world  of 
America  would  give  them  a  standing  of  prac- 
tical importance.  Mr.  Fels  himself  neither  in 
its  origin  nor  at  any  other  time  played  any  part 
in  the  control  or  direction  of  the  fund.  He 
refused  even  to  form  part  of  the  advisory  com- 
mittee. He  preferred  then  as  always  to  re- 
main a  freelance  in  the  movement  entirely  un- 
connected with  any  organization.  He  stood 
to  the  Fund  in  no  relation  other  than  that  of 
an  important  contributor  who  sympathized 
with  its  objects  and  always  deeply  admired 
the  work  it  was  able  to  achieve.  He  was,  of 
course,  often  enough  consulted  on  the  plans  of 
the  Commission,  though  as  often  as  not,  he 
would  refuse  possibly  to  fetter  its  members  by 
offering  counsel.  He  simply  stood  to  it  from 
the  outset  in  the  relation  of  an  interested  spec- 
tator who  cared  profoundly  for  its  success. 
Nor  was  he  disappointed  in  his  hopes  of  what 
it  would  achieve. 

The  plans  the  Commission  set  before  itself 
in  the  first  year  of  its  activity  were  commend- 
ably  large.  It  assisted  largely  the  progressive 
movement  in  Oregon  which,  under  the  leader- 


188       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

ship  of  Mr.  W.  S.  U'Ren,  seemed  likely  to  do 
work  of  permanent  democratic  value.  Mr. 
U'Ren  was  promoting  a  Single  Tax  measure 
in  that  State  and  the  Commission  felt  that  they 
could  do  no  finer  work  than  assist  it.  Simi- 
larly, did  they  help  in  Rhode  Island  where, 
under  Mr.  Garvin,  the  Single  Tax  forces  were 
highly  organized,  and  in  Missouri  where  the 
atmosphere  was  akin  to,  though  less  developed 
than,  that  of  Oregon.  A  Press  Bureau  on  an 
extensive  scale  was  established  which  not  only 
distributed  material  to  a  large  number  of  radi- 
cal journals,  but  also  constituted  a  bureau  of 
information  in  regard  to  the  land  problem  all 
over  the  world.  A  depot  of  literature  was 
created  which  distributed  books  and  pamphlets, 
mainly  free  of  cost,  all  over  the  United 
States.  Publications  either  definitely  or 
largely  Single  Tax  were  assisted  in  various 
ways.  A  beginning  was  made  of  what  is  now 
a  remarkably  complete  directory  of  Single 
Taxers  all  over  the  world,  a  list  which  has 
proved  of  invaluable  service  as  a  means  of 
propaganda,  and  must  be  of  unique  utility  in 
any  political  movement.  Experts  were  sent 


THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION       189 

out  to  work  up  special  districts.  Arrange- 
ments were  made  to  supply  clubs  and  organi- 
zations of  every  kind  with  speakers  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  the  economic  philosophy  of 
Henry  George. 

From  the  very  first,  in  fact,  the  Commis- 
sion served,  as  it  now  serves  in  an  increasing 
degree,  as  the  clearing-house  of  the  whole 
movement.  It  gave  the  Single  Tax  a  national 
status  by  providing  it  with  a  national  organi- 
zation. It  focused  the  activities  of  the  Single 
Taxers  and  then  reflected  them  outwards 
where  they  could  prove  of  the  greatest  service. 
In  its  mere  collection  of  funds  to  match  the 
money  subscribed  by  Mr.  Fels,  it  probably 
penetrated  into  quarters  where  the  Single  Tax 
had  never  before  been  known.  For  the  first 
time  it  endeavored  to  distribute  literature  not 
only  on  an  enormously  wide  scale,  but  in  a 
thoroughly  complete  and  scientific  manner. 
The  fundamental  thing  was  the  spread  of  Mr. 
George's  own  books.  To  this  end,  the  Com- 
mission arranged  for  the  publication  of  cheap 
editions  of  his  works.  At  Mr.  Fels'  sugges- 
tion translations  of  Progress  and  Poverty  into 


190       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Italian,  Bulgarian,  Swedish,  Yiddish  and  Chi- 
nese were  arranged.  The  machinery  of  Con- 
gress was  skilfully  utilized  in  conjunction  with 
Mr.  Henry  George,  Junior,  to  effect  an  enor- 
mous distribution  of  Mr.  George's  Protection 
or  Free  Trade  exactly  at  that  psychological 
moment  when  the  revision  of  the  tariff  was 
being  everywhere  discussed.  Nor  was  this  all. 
It  was  realized  that  if  the  movement  was  to 
make  an  adequate  appeal,  regard  must  be  had 
to  the  variety  of  men's  interests.  Some  men 
were  farmers,  some  manufacturers,  some  en- 
gaged in  the  process  of  distribution,  a  large 
number  were  wage-earners.  Each  naturally 
desired  to  understand  the  relation  of  the  move- 
ment to  his  own  special  problems.  For  each, 
therefore,  in  addition  to  the  large  mass  of 
purely  general  literature,  a  special  series  of 
reports  began  to  be  issued.  The  relation  of 
Single  Tax  to  farming,  to  manufacturing  in- 
dustries, to  the  wage  problem,  to  trade  union- 
ism, were  specially  studied  and  short,  pithy 
pamphlets  published  upon  them.  At  the  end 
of  its  first  year's  work,  the  Commission  could 
fairly  claim  that  at  no  time  since  Mr.  George 


THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION       191 

himself  had  taken  charge  of  the  propaganda, 
had  the  movement  been  so  widely  discussed  or 
so  generally  appreciated. 

The  Commission,  as  was  natural,  did  not 
fail  to  meet  with  criticisms,  and  it  is  but  right 
to  explain  Mr.  Fels'  relation  to  them.  It  was 
complained  to  him  that  the  Single  Tax  move- 
ment was  essentially  a  democratic  movement, 
that  he  had  had  no  right  thus  to  foster  the 
establishment  of  an  autocratic  and  self-ap- 
pointed body.  His  reply  to  this  was  suffici- 
ently simple.  The  need  of  the  kind  of  body 
his  gift  had  brought  into  being  was  daily  be- 
coming more  apparent.  Every  organization 
began  by  a  number  of  men  agreeing  to  foster 
certain  aims  and  so  had  the  Joseph  Fels  Com- 
mission commenced.  As  to  its  autocratic  char- 
acter, Mr.  Fels  was  never  very  seriously  con- 
cerned. It  was,  as  he  again  and  again  pointed 
out  to  his  complainants,  always  open  to  receive 
suggestions ;  and  the  main  thing  was  efficiency. 
When  its  actual  work  was  complained  of,  it 
would  be  time  to  discuss  its  methods  and  char- 
acter. To  a  similar  complaint  that  "his"  Fund 
had  no  right  to  divert  to  itself  all  the  funds 


192       JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

of  the  movement,  Mr.  Fels  replied  that  there 
could  be  no  greater  test  of  the  popular  appre- 
ciation of  its  merit.  "People,"  he  told  one 
such  critic,  "give  either  because  they  like  what 
the  Fund  is  doing  or  because  they  sympathize 
with  the  way  it  is  doing  it.  No  one  gives  to 
anything  just  because  he  wants  to  get  rid  of 
his  money."  Nor  did  he  pay  much  heed  to 
those  who  complained  of  the  broad  basis  upon 
which  the  Commission  had  been  established. 
Some  complained  of  subsidies  to  papers  not 
entirely  Single  Tax  in  their  character.  Others 
thought  that  the  Commission  had  no  right  to 
divert  its  funds  to  movements  like  the  Initia- 
tive and  Referendum  movement.  Mr.  Fels 
had  no  sympathy  with  either  of  these  attitudes. 
He  did  not  like  papers  that  were  solely  Single 
Tax  in  outlook  because  he  knew  by  hard  ex- 
perience that  they  preach  only  to  the  con- 
verted. He  preferred  to  support  an  ably  con- 
ducted radical  journal  which  had  an  outlook 
sufficiently  Single  Tax  to  make  its  readers  un- 
derstand the  potentialities  of  the  movement. 
This,  indeed,  was  the  reason  why  the  Com- 
mission particularly  chose  out  The  Public  as 


THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION       193 

its  organ.  Courageously  sustained  and  bril- 
liantly edited  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Post  for  many 
years,  the  paper  had,  as  Mr.  Fels  put  it,  "the 
real  root  of  the  matter";  and  if  people  read 
a  radical  comment  from  the  Georgian  stand- 
point on  the  problems  in  which  they  were 
interested,  their  sympathy  was  far  more  likely 
to  be  won  than  by  a  journal  for  the  object  of 
which  they  had  at  the  outset  no  affection.  "It 
isn't  business,"  he  wrote  in  his  practical  way, 
"there  won't  be  readers,  and  there  won't  be 
advertisements."  Time  has  shown  that  he  was 
not  mistaken  in  that  judgment. 

He  believed,  too,  intensely  in  the  promo- 
tion of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum.  To- 
gether they  constituted  a  formidable  weapon 
against  the  holders  of  monopoly.  Often 
enough  it  was  the  constitutional  expedient  nec- 
essary to  secure  the  passage  of  a  Single  Tax 
measure.  In  that  event,  it  was  as  he  thought, 
the  necessary  incident  of  the  ideal,  and  he  sup- 
ported it  with  all  the  enthusiasm  at  his  com- 
mand. Indeed,  to  him  the  Initiative  and  Ref- 
erendum were  measures  fundamental  to  any 
democracy.  Their  absence  was  due  mainly, 


194       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

as  he  conceived,  either  to  fear  or  to  distrust 
of  the  common  people,  and  both  of  those  senti- 
ments appeared  to  him  entirely  without  basis 
in  fact.  It  seemed  to  him  the  merest  stupid- 
ity not  to  trust  the  people.  Confidence  enough 
and  to  spare  had  been  placed  in  the  benevo- 
lence of  an  aristocracy  and  the  sense  of  a  legis- 
lature's responsibility,  and  in  both  events  they 
had  proved  to  be  misplaced.  He  urged  con- 
tinually that  no  finer  check  than  these  existed 
upon  the  possibility  of  legislative  misde- 
meanor. 

Of  one  curious  type  of  criticism  a  word 
may  be  said,  and  it  is  his  own  word.  When  he 
began  to  devote  large  sums  of  money  to  the 
Single  Tax,  he  was  criticized  by  the  capitalist 
press  in  an  amusing  variety  of  ways.  Some- 
times it  appeared  that  he  was  supporting  an 
exploded  fallacy.  Sometimes  he  was  told,  as 
in  a  famous  New  York  paper,  that  he  had, 
like  Mr.  Carnegie,  grown  tired  of  his  wealth 
and  had  chosen  what  he  deemed  the  most  fit 
method  of  its  restoration.  Point  was  sup- 
posed to  be  given  to  this  type  of  comment  by 
his  own  remark  that  he,  in  common  with  every 


THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION        195 

wealthy  man,  was  virtually  a  robber,  since  he 
had  battened  on  the  monopoly  the  law  had  en- 
abled him  to  maintain.  A  paragraph,  "The 
wicked  wealth  of  Mr.  Fels,"  gave  him  the  oc- 
casion for  a  pointed  reply. 

"I  believe,"  he  wrote,  "as  I  said  in  my 
speech,  that  the  fortunes  acquired  by  many 
people,  are  largely  due  to  unjust  economic  con- 
ditions, and  from  the  moral  point  of  view,  these 
conditions  are  responsible  for  what  is  prac- 
tically a  system  of  robbery.  You  say  that  it 
is  'impossible  to  work  up  complete  sympathy 
with  the  moral  distress  of  Mr.  Fels.  He  can 
divest  himself  of  his  stolen  goods  if  he  so  much 
wishes,  and  thus  re-establish  his  soul-cleanli- 
ness.' But  surely  this  would  solve  no  problem, 
nor  remove  the  cause  of  distress  from  any  sym- 
pathetic mind.  No  efforts  of  mine  can  repair 
the  mischief  which  is  wrought  by  the  unjust 
distribution  of  wealth.  I  cannot  discover  the 
men,  women,  and  children  who  have  been 
wronged  by  being  deprived  of  what  they  have 
produced  with  hard  and  exacting  labor.  Even 
if  I  could  discover  them,  and  if  I  were  to  re- 
store to  them  the  wealth,  or  a  small  part  of  the 


196       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

wealth  of  which  they  have  been  unjustly  de- 
prived, they  would  offer  gratitude  to  which 
I  have  no  just  claim,  because  the  wealth  was 
not  really  mine.  This  relationship  would  be 
bad  for  them  and  bad  for  me.  There  is  only 
one  method,  therefore,  of  curing  the  evils  that 
spring  from  the  unjust  distribution  of  wealth, 
and  that  is  by  putting  a  stop  to  the  injustice. 
"In  your  editorial  you  associate  me  with  Mr. 
Carnegie,  who  has  gained  a  world-wide  repu- 
tation as  a  philanthropist,  and  thus  suggest  that 
his  motives  and  mine,  in  discussing  this  sub- 
ject, are  the  same.  There  is  a  mistake  here. 
There  is  a  clear  distinction  between  our  mo- 
tives as  well  as  our  methods.  Mr.  Carnegie 
has  generously  endowed  universities  and  li- 
braries for  the  better  education  of  working- 
people.  I  appreciate  such  work,  but  I  would 
point  out  that  this  is  not  what  the  working- 
people  are  most  in  need  of  at  the  present  mo- 
ment. There  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
well-educated  men  in  Europe  and  America  who 
cannot  get  reasonable  scope  for  the  applica- 
tion of  their  labor.  The  land  of  this  world 
in  some  shape  or  other  is  the  subject  on  which 


THE  FELS  FUND  COMMISSION       197 

every  man  must  exercise  his  labor.  Much  of 
the  land  is  held  up  by  private  individuals 
against  the  men  who  are  willing  to  use  it ;  and 
for  more  of  it  men  have  to  pay  too  high  prices 
or  rent.  The  result  is  that  we  have  vast  arm- 
ies of  unemployed  men  in  every  civilized  coun- 
try. I  venture  to  affirm  that,  whether  as  a 
matter  of  business  or  of  justice,  what  these 
men  require  is  not  more  education,  but  more 
freedom  of  access  to  land.  The  education 
they  have  received  is  rendered  useless,  and  they 
are  denied  opportunity  of  developing  and  edu- 
cating themselves  further. 

"I  object  to  land  being  held  out  of  use  as 
it  is,  under  the  laws  of  most  countries.  This 
policy  prevents  men  from  helping  themselves, 
and  forces  them  into  the  miserable  and  humili- 
ating position  of  accepting  and  soliciting  char- 
ity. I  object  further  to  land  being  used  by 
one  man  as  a  means  of  exacting  from  another 
part  of  his  earnings.  A  tax  on  land  values 
according  to  the  principles  of  Henry  George 
would  bring  the  land  into  use  and  enable  the 
tax  authorities  to  exempt  buildings  and  im- 
provements from  the  burdens  that  now  fall 


198       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

upon  them.  This  system  would  abolish  pov- 
erty by  stopping  that  form  of  legal  robbery 
for  which  the  laws  of  the  country  are  respon- 
sible. I  am  willing  to  spend  money  to  intro- 
duce this  system;  I  invite  others  to  join  me. 
It  is  a  more  reasonable  task  to  do  what  one 
can  to  prevent  the  waste  and  ruin  of  human 
life  and  happiness  than  to  stand  by  while  men 
are  broken,  even  if  we  attend  with  bandages 
and  ointment  to  bind  up  their  wounds.  This 
movement  has  taken  root  and  is  growing  rap- 
idly in  the  United  States,  in  Great  Britain, 
in  Canada,  in  the  leading  European  countries 
and  in  Australasia.  In  a  few  years  we  shall 
realize  a  large  measure  of  our  aims." 

There  is  no  more  succinct  statement  of  the 
Single  Tax.  The  Commission  was  simply  his 
commentary  on  its  aims. 


XIV 

Educational  Experiments  and 
Suffrage 

IN  all  his  activities  toward  betterment,  Mr. 
Fels  proceeded  upon  the  principle  that  a 
necessary  condition  to  mental  and  moral  im- 
provement is  the  re-arrangement  of  the  physi- 
cal conditions  of  life.  As  the  old  Physiocrats 
maintained  that  culture  is  historically  derived 
in  its  various  forms  from  types  of  physical  en- 
vironment, and  civilization  a  consequence  of 
geographical  conditions,  so  there  are  those  who 
believe  that  the  making  of  the  individual  man 
or  woman  is  conditioned,  not  so  much  by  the 
artificial  environment  of  class-room  and  text- 
books, as  by  the  environment  of  physical  things 
and  conditions  found  in  early  childhood;  it  is 
through  dealing  with  conditions  of  real  im- 
portance and  interacting  with  a  world  whose 
significance  is  vital  that  any  learning  worth  the 
while  must  be  derived. 

199 


200       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

At  various  times  Mr.  Fels  endeavored  to 
secure  a  larger  measure  of  instruction  and 
practice  in  gardening  for  the  children,  believ- 
ing as  he  did  in  the  unlimited  possibilities  of 
the  soil  in  making  men  and  women.  As  in 
most  other  cases  during  that  period,  he  was 
before  his  time.  The  authorities  were  quite 
willing  to  be  given  financial  assistance,  to  be 
applied  as  they  thought  best.  They  would 
give  no  grant  and  almost  no  facilities  for  gar- 
dening, believing  that  nature  study  was  quite 
sufficient.  Nature  study  at  that  time,  as  in- 
deed at  present,  consisted  in  the  Council 
Schools,  of  little  more  than  producing  before 
children  a  few  flowers,  twigs,  leaves  and  tad- 
poles, with  possibly  a  dove,  rabbit  or  guinea- 
pig  kept  in  confinement  in  the  class-room. 
While  the  silent  pressure  -of  industry  makes 
itself  felt  even  in  the  infants'  class,  and  es- 
pecially in  the  growing  provision  for  manual 
and  technical  training,  those  occupations  which 
deal  more  directly  with  nature,  which  are  vital 
in  the  conservation  of  national  life  and  of  over- 
whelming importance  as  the  basis  for  in- 
dividual development,  these  have  found,  and 


EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIMENTS        201 

still  find,  in  British  schools  only  sporadic  and 
feeble  support.  Short-sighted  education 
authorities  are  eager  to  serve  their  masters 
by  producing  in  increasing  quantity  a  pro- 
letariat of  mechanical  skill  without  knowledge 
of,  or  interest  in,  the  one  occupation  which 
could  save  it  from  the  industrial  labor  market, 
and  at  the  same  time,  make  life  more  worth 
the  living. 

Apart  from  what  was  done  for  the  teach- 
ing of  gardening  in  connection  with  the  Va- 
cant Lands  Cultivation  Society,  Mr.  Fels'  en- 
deavors toward  altering  the  machinery  of  ed- 
ucation resulted  in  disappointment.  At  May- 
land,  however,  where  he  was  free  to  organize 
a  school  without  official  interference,  as  there 
was  of  course  no  grant,  he  succeeded  in  pro- 
ducing an  institution  which  might — had  cir- 
cumstances continued  favorable — have  become 
a  model  school  of  great  influence.  He  called 
to  his  assistance  the  experience  and  judgment 
of  Miss  Maria  Findlay,  a  veteran  and  leader 
in  the  cause  of  educational  reform,  and  with 
the  enthusiastic  support  of  his  teachers,  ar- 
ranged for  the  children  of  the  colony  a  cur- 


202       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

riculum  which  had  few  equals  and  no  superiors. 
It  was  concerned  to  a  large  extent  with  the 
every-day  occupations  seen  about  them,  gar- 
dening, carpentry  and  the  care  of  animals ;  and 
even  the  more  formal  materials  of  instruction 
were  never  permitted  to  pass  out  of  touch  with 
reality. 

Having  built  and  equipped  such  a  school, 
having  provided  admirable  teachers  and  an 
unsurpassed  curriculum,  Mr.  Pels  invited  the 
Education  Committee  of  the  County  Council 
to  take  over  and  incorporate  it  in  their  system, 
and  to  give  assurance  that  its  excellencies 
would  be  maintained.  Needless  to  say  there 
was  no  place  for  it  in  the  system. 

Of  more  importance  so  far  as  concerns 
ultimate  results  was  the  co-operation  of  Mr. 
Fels  with  Miss  Margaret  McMillan,  in  her 
efforts  to  improve  the  physical  conditions  of 
childhood.  This  original  and  energetic  re- 
former, devoted  to  the  cause  of  poor  children, 
feeling  always  the  futility  of  instructing  minds 
housed  in  bodies  unfed,  unclean  and  often 
diseased,  has  given  her  life  to  arousing  the 
nation's  interest  in  its  children.  She  has 


EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIMENTS        203 

worked  with  teachers,  with  authorities,  with 
politicians,  on  the  platform,  at  conferences, 
everywhere  that  opportunity  presented  itself, 
with  unsurpassed  zeal,  and  in  the  end  with 
astonishing  success.  Mr.  Fels  met  her  as  she 
was  leaving  Bradford,  after  achieving  for  that 
city  the  proud  distinction  of  incorporating 
into  the  local  educational  system  provision  for 
the  hygienic  needs  of  children.  In  conversa- 
tion at  the  reception  given  to  mark  her  de- 
parture, Mr.  Fels  discovered  that  here  was 
something  of  unlimited  importance  for  the 
well-being  of  the  future  generation,  consistent 
with  his  own  most  intimate  convictions,  and 
worthy  of  every  degree  of  support  that  it  could 
receive.  He  offered  at  once  to  give  financial 
support  to  Miss  McMillan  if  she  would  con- 
ceive and  carry  out  a  scheme  of  hygienic 
centers  of  larger  scope  than  Bradford  had  been 
able  to  allow  her.  Miss  McMillan  came  to 
London  and  soon  afterwards  at  his  home  in 
Bickley  the  offer  was  renewed,  made  definite, 
and  attached  to  a  plan  with  which  Miss  McMil- 
lan intended  to  approach  the  education  au- 
thority. This  was  in  May,  1904.  In  Novem- 


204       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

ber  of  the  same  year  they  went  together  to  in- 
terview the  Education  Committee  of  the  Lon- 
don County  Council,  and  made  an  offer  of  £5,- 
000  to  assist  in  carrying  out  a  plan  of  health 
centers.  The  Committee  was,  of  course,  con- 
servative, and  treated  the  innovation  with  the 
usual  degree  of  suspicion.  As  very  often  hap- 
pened when  Mr.  Fels  was  present,  the  inter- 
view became  somewhat  stormy.  He  usually 
succeeded  in  expressing  his  opinion  of  men  and 
things.  The  central  idea  in  the  plan  was  the 
establishment  and  equipment  of  centers  in  the 
various  districts  of  London  for  the  hygienic 
inspection  and  treatment  of  school-children. 
These  centers  would,  of  course,  necessitate  the 
installation  of  baths.  The  Committee  was  suf- 
ficiently magnanimous  to  be  willing  to  accept 
the  money  without  the  plan.  Asked  what  they 
could  do  with  £5,000,  they  agreed  that  they 
might  be  able  to  establish  two  centers.  Miss 
McMillan  knew  that  with  this  money  she  could 
establish  fifty.  After  this  interview,  Mr.  Fels 
told  her  that  he  could  see  little  prospect  of 
success  in  dealing  with  the  authorities,  and  that 
it  would  be  better  for  her  to  do  her  work  alone, 


with  his  support.  With  a  view  to  carrying 
out  the  plan  Miss  McMillan  began  to  work  for 
medical  inspection  in  the  schools,  feeling  that 
the  whole  movement  toward  the  physical  bet- 
terment of  children  would  have  to  be  of  a  piece. 
She  prepared  a  precis,  secured  the  supporting 
signatures  of  the  most  enlightened  medical 
men  of  London,  as  Sir  Victor  Horsley,  Sir 
Lauder  Brunton,  Mr.  Forbes  Winslow,  Sir 
J.  Crichton  Browne.  She  secured  also  the 
support  of  the  then  president  of  the  National 
Union  of  Teachers.  Armed  with  this  docu- 
ment she  went  to  the  House  of  Commons  and 
interviewed  her  friend,  Mr.  Jowett.  Her  plan 
contained  three  provisions — compulsory  in- 
spection, an  annual  report,  and  a  supervisory 
board  at  Whitehall.  Neither  from  Mr. 
Jowett,  nor  afterwards  from  Mr.  Birrell,  was 
much  encouragement  received.  Not  daunted, 
however,  she  again  interviewed  Mr.  Jowett  to- 
gether with  Mr.  Illingworth,  Mr.  Birrell's  sec- 
retary, gave  them  more  details,  and  told  them 
the  cost.  Thereupon  Mr.  Birrell  received  a 
deputation  introduced  by  Mr.  Keir  Hardie 
and  supported  by  several  eminent  medical  men. 


206       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Medical  inspection  was  embodied  in  the  Ed- 
ucation Bill  of  1906,  and  on  July  16th,  the 
clauses  referring  to  it  were  carried  in  the 
House.  The  Bill  was  dropped  in  August  but 
the  clauses  providing  for  medical  inspection 
were  inserted  in  its  successor  and  carried  in 
the  Education  Act  of  1907. 

Having  progressed  so  far,  Miss  McMillan 
turned  to  the  pursuit  of  her  main  objective,  the 
establishment  of  health  centers.  She  obtained 
permission  of  the  London  County  Council  to 
use  a  single  small  room  in  Bow,  and  supported 
by  Mr.  Fels,  established  the  first  school  clinic. 
Two  physicians,  Dr.  Eder  and  Dr.  Tribe,  at- 
tended, each,  one  afternoon  per  week.  The 
education  authority,  however,  being  still  dis- 
trustful and  unsympathetic,  sent  few  patients. 
The  treatment  therefore  turned  out  to  be  too 
expensive,  amounting  to  7s.  6d.  per  child.  As 
there  was  a  hospital  rate  of  5s.  per  child 
which  the  Council  could  use,  the  clinic  was  con- 
sidered a  failure.  Miss  McMillan,  still  de- 
termined, decided  to  drop  all  connection  with 
the  school  authorities  and  proceed  on  her  own 
lines.  She  went  to  Deptford  and  organized 


EDUCATIONAL  EXPERIMENTS        207 

a  private  clinic,  attended  by  two  physicians,  a 
dentist  and  a  nurse.  Not  having  to  wait  for 
the  County  Council  to  send  patients  the  clinic 
was  at  once  filled.  From  then,  to  the  present, 
children  have  continued  to  pour  in,  and  the 
treatment  per  child  has  been  found  to  amount 
to  2s.  6d.,  half  the  hospital  rate.  This  aroused 
the  much  belated  interest  of  the  Education 
Committee  and  in  1911  it  agreed  to  assist  with 
a  grant  for  dental  treatment.  This  was  fol- 
lowed in  1912  by  an  additional  grant  for  eye 
and  ear  treatment.  Miss  McMillan  has  pub- 
lished two  reports,  showing  methods,  results 
and  cost.  Through  these  the  Deptford  ex- 
periment has  become  known  throughout  the 
world,  and  the  school  clinic  will  soon  be  every- 
where an  established  part  of  the  educational 
machinery.  Holding  firmly  to  her  original 
idea  of  hygienic  as  well  as  medical  treatment, 
Miss  McMillan  has  widened  the  scope  of  the 
clinic  to  include  remedial  drill,  and  camps  for 
boys  and  girls.  In  1912  she  opened  a  baby 
clinic. 

In  this  way  Mr.  Fels  placed  his  resources 
at   the   service   of   originality   and   devotion. 


208       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

While  increasingly  absorbed  in  other  reforms, 
his  interest  in  the  Deptford  experiment  con- 
tinued to  the  end.  Just  before  leaving  Eng- 
land on  his  last  journey,  while  on  a  visit  to  the 
clinic,  he  happened  to  see  some  vacant  land 
close  by.  He  wrote  to  the  County  Council 
and  secured  the  use  of  it  to  Miss  McMillan. 

It  is  needless  to  describe  the  ways  in  which 
Mr.  Fels  gave  encouragement  and  assistance 
to  the  cause  of  woman's  suffrage.  It  is  of 
more  importance  to  make  clear  his  mode  of 
thinking  and  the  motives  which  originated  his 
action.  With  him  the  movement  was  a  factor 
which  made  toward  freedom,  and  just  as  he 
endeavored  to  show  men  workers  how  to  use 
political  for  the  attainment  of  economic  free- 
dom, so  he  saw  the  suffrage  as  a  necessary  in- 
strument by  which  women  workers  could  secure 
for  themselves  a  tolerable  place  in  the  world. 

The  whole  course  of  history  from  savagery 
to  the  present  day  displays  women,  in  the  mass, 
as  sunk  in  more  or  less  profound  servitude. 
So  far  from  being  the  cherished  object  of  man's 
solicitous  protection,  as  he  always  likes  to  make 


SUFFRAGE  209 

her  believe,  the  facts  show  that  she  has  in  the 
main  been  his  willing  or  unwilling  slave.  It 
is  part  of  the  masculine  constitution  to  be  in- 
herently disinclined  to  work.  His  permanent 
desire  is  to  utilize  or  exploit  some  force  or 
thing  already  in  existence,  without  aiding  its 
creation.  The  savage  hunter  after  days  of 
rest  would  go  into  the  forest  and  kill  his  ani- 
mal. He  would  thereupon  leave  it  to  be 
brought  in  and  prepared  by  his  women.  There 
is  evidence  to  show  that  all  the  main  activities 
which  originated  civilization,  as  the  domestica- 
tion of  plants  and  animals,  the  utilization  of 
fire,  the  cultivation  of  the  soil,  the  arts  of  weav- 
ing and  pottery,  were  all  feminine  achieve- 
ments. Man  was  largely  concerned  with  war 
and  the  chase.  This  primitive  psychology  has 
been  maintained  to  the  present  day.  Man  by 
nature  inclines  to  the  coup,  the  stroke,  the 
momentary  use  of  his  strong  right  arm,  and 
later,  to  the  direction  of  work  and  the  exploita- 
tion of  all  who  can  be  made  to  work  for  him. 
The  hard  and  patient  labor  has  always  fallen 
to  the  lot  of  woman. 

The  step  is  a  short  one  from  the  savage 


210       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

household  to  the  modern  office  in  which  women 
do  the  drudgery,  while  man  is  the  office  man- 
ager. The  pretense  that  women's  sphere  does 
not  intersect  that  of  productive  labor  is  his- 
torically and  actually  absurd.  Instead  of 
woman  endeavoring  to  enter  into  the  occupa- 
tions of  man,  it  is  more  correct  to  say  that 
man  has,  under  the  modern  circumstances  of 
great  populations,  industrially  organized  com- 
munities, and  the  general  absence  of  wars, 
gradually  occupied  the  sphere  which  histori- 
cally belongs  to  woman.  A  few  months  of 
war  have  demonstrated  how  unessential  man 
is  in  the  main  life-maintaining  functions  of 
society.  It  is  now  discovered  that  women  can 
even  make  munitions  of  war.  Man  is,  as 
always,  the  fighting,  dominating  drone.  It  is 
a  pity  that  there  is  no  trade  union  of  house- 
wives, to  make  articulate  their  position,  work 
and  requirements.  It  would  at  once  be  dis- 
covered, that  instead  of  being  outside  the  eco- 
nomic sphere,  she  is  the  larger  half;  if  there 
were  no  other  reason,  because  she  is  almost  the 
sole  disbursive  agent  of  all  income.  Apart 
from  household  activity,  which  is  taken  for 


SUFFRAGE 

granted,  and  unconsidered,  women  constitute 
an  increasingly  larger  proportion  of  produc- 
tive labor,  in  industry;  this  labor  is  allotted 
to  her  as  a  class,  and  always  distinguished  by 
being  underpaid.  Wherever  found,  from  the 
sweated  shirtmaker,  through  the  textile  trades, 
through  laundresses,  domestic  servants,  wait- 
resses, to  clerks,  inspectresses,  and  professional 
women,  the  rule  is  the  same ;  the  work  of  quality 
and  quantity  equal  to  that  performed  by  men 
receives,  when  carried  on  by  women,  a  lower 
scale  of  pay.  Here  then  is  a  basis  for  a 
demand  for  the  suffrage.  The  business  of  gov- 
ernment is  to  redress  grievances.  Women 
are  forced  into  a  class  distinction  by  the  con- 
ditions of  industry  and  by  the  inherent  ten- 
dency of  man  to  exploit  them.  The  one  effec- 
tive mode  of  righting  the  balance  is  to  have  a 
voice  in  the  conduct  of  affairs. 

There  seems  to  be  a  difficulty  even  among 
suffragists  in  recognizing  the  woman  worker. 
There  are  some  who  advocate  a  measure  of 
suffrage  that  would  leave  her  out  altogether. 
It  is  not  likely  to  be  successful,  because  it  would 
then  include  the  women  who  neither  need  nor 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

want  the  suffrage.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  in 
the  upper  ranges  of  the  social  scale  what 
amounts  to  a  different  female  species  is  en- 
countered. The  unproductive  and  parasitic 
woman,  guarded  from  every  semblance  of 
work,  must  be  protected  from  the  contamina- 
tion of  a  political  campaign.  No  one  can  sup- 
pose that  the  cherished  occupier  of  a  rich  man's 
seraglio  is  a  fit  recipient  of  the  vote  or  any- 
thing else,  except  contempt.  Her  part  in  poli- 
tical life  consists  in  petty  intrigue.  Every 
one  knows  that  the  people  of  the  upper  class 
are  not  vote  casters.  They  are  vote  getters. 
The  objection  frequently  made  to  the  ex- 
tension of  suffrage  to  the  women  is,  that  it 
would  align  sex  against  sex  and  therefore  en- 
gender antagonism.  The  obvious  reply  is  that 
sex  antagonism  is  already,  and  has  always  been 
in  existence,  and  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
masculine  attitude.  The  suffrage  would  as- 
sist to  diminish,  if  not  to  destroy,  this  antagon- 
ism, as  an  analysis  of  its  cause  must  show. 
There  is  first  of  all  the  essentially  masculine 
love  of  domination.  Most  men  feel  that  it 
somehow  disgraces  them  to  work  under  women, 


SUFFRAGE  213 

and  the  feeling  is  strong,  even  if  unconscious, 
that  the  admission  of  women  to  a  voice  in  ad- 
ministration would  intrench  upon  the  most 
cherished  of  man's  prerogatives,  that  of  "boss- 
ing" somebody.  In  the  second  place,  the  cur- 
rent of  masculine  opinion  inevitably  sets 
against  anything  that  might  assist  women  to 
economic  independence.  Man's  judgment  is 
never  quite  free  from  considerations  that  per- 
tain to  the  marriage  market,  and  he  always  de- 
sires that  his  own  great  desirablity  should  be 
supplemented  by  conditions  which  make  it 
difficult  for  woman  to  earn  her  own  living. 
The  plain  fact  is  that  man  fears  a  free  and 
equal  choice  in  the  matter  of  mating,  and  this 
fact  seems  to  be  the  hidden  core  behind  most 
of  the  clap-trap  about  the  protection  of  women. 
Apart  from  the  hot-house  product  already 
mentioned,  which  indeed  requires  no  considera- 
tion, no  one  ever  hears  of  woman,  woman  of 
the  people,  being  protected  from  anything 
whatever.  It  is  upon  her  particularly  that  the 
most  brutal  and  even  abhorrent  facts  of  life 
are  allowed  to  pour  unrestrained.  Her  role 
is  rather  that  of  protector  than  protected.  In 


214       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

what  way  can  the  woman  of  the  working-class 
household  supplement  her  husband's  earnings, 
and  at  the  same  time  keep  the  household  go- 
ing? The  answer  is  by  sweated  home  in- 
dustry, by  taking  in  washing  or  by  going  out 
charring;  the  most  arduous  and  least  remuner- 
ative of  occupations.  The  only  protection  ex- 
ercised toward  these  women  is  the  protection 
from  their  rights,  and  the  opportunity  to 
secure  for  themselves  a  chance  in  the  world. 
There  is  then,  a  real  and  profound  sex  antagon- 
ism, which  the  suffrage  movement  is  endeavor- 
ing to  surmount.  The  cry  that  emancipation 
is  prejudicial  to  the  home  merely  calls  in  ques- 
tion man's  right  to  say  anything  about  the 
home.  To  the  vast  majority  it  is  merely  a 
place  for  his  rest,  feeding  and  comfort.  Its 
essential  meaning  seldom  penetrates  to  the 
masculine  consciousness,  and  this  obtuseness 
is  as  marked  in  cabinet  ministers  as  in  navvies. 
The  greatest  of  all  difficulties  that  the 
movement  faces  is  the  tendency  to  read  the 
fatuous  ineptitude  of  upper-class  women  into 
all  ranks  of  society.  Men  in  authority,  be- 
cause their  experience  has  never  taught  them 


SUFFRAGE  815 

otherwise,  firmly  believe  that  woman  is  con- 
stitutionally incapable  of  grasping  and  han- 
dling the  exigencies  of  administration.  It  is  a 
pity  that  they  cannot  one  and  all  board  for  a 
week  in  a  typical  working-class  household. 
They  would  find  innumerable  cases  where  the 
man  would  hesitate  to  declare,  except  very 
privately,  that  he  is  the  head,  in  spite  of  the 
occasional  use  of  his  strong  right  arm.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  it  requires  a  better  grasp  and  a 
nicer  balance  of  judgment  to  carry  on  a  house- 
hold, and  bring  up  a  considerable  family  of 
children  on  a  pound  a  week,  than  have  been 
displayed  for  many  years  at  the  Local  Gov- 
ernment Board  or  the  Home  Office. 

Here  then  was  Joseph  Fels'  case  for  the 
suffrage.  His  creed  contained  but  one  article, 
"Freedom  and  equal  opportunity  for  all."  If 
a  citizen's  work  constitutes  citizenship  he  could 
see  no  reason  why  sex  should  debar  from  a  voice 
in  the  conditions  of  that  work.  But  he  had 
another  reason  as  well;  it  was  his  confidence 
in  the  penetrative  insight  and  grasp  of  the 
essential,  which  characterizes  every  activity 
that  woman  undertakes.  The  natural  conser- 


216      JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

vators  and  disbursers  of  all  wealth  would  not  be 
long  in  applying  their  intuitive  and  acquired 
knowledge  to  the  resources  of  the  community. 
It  is  difficult  to  conceive  a  state,  in  the  conduct 
of  which  women  play  their  appropriate  part, 
allowing  the  sources  of  all  production  to  re- 
main monopolized  and  exploited  for  the  private 
benefit  of  a  comparatively  few  individuals, 
while  the  mass  of  the  people  are  held  in  servile, 
patronized,  inspected  and  regulated  bond- 
age. His  faith  was  strong  that  woman  would 
soon  penetrate  the  screen  of  pretense  to  the 
injustice  which  lies  behind. 


XV 

Later  Activities 

LOSELY  connected  with  his  zeal  for  edu- 
cation,  was  the  deep  interest  he  took  in 
boys'  and  girls'  clubs.  Here,  too,  he  felt  was 
creative  work,  the  turning  of  leisure  to  an  un- 
conscious educational  purpose.  Of  the  vari- 
ous ways  in  which  he  gave  expression  to  his 
interest,  there  is  no  space  to  speak;  but  one 
story  we  are  able,  through  the  Hon.  Lily 
Montague,  to  reproduce. 

"Mr.  Joseph  Fels  first  influenced  the  life 
of  the  West  Central  Girls'  Club  when  he  ap- 
peared in  the  character  of  a  fairy  godfather  at 
our  Anniversary  Celebration  in  1910.  On  this 
occasion  he  was  present  when  Miss  Montague 
made  an  appeal  for  building  an  adequate  home 
for  the  many  girls  and  women  who  come  to 
London  to  learn  English,  or  are  orphaned  and 
seek  a  home  rather  than  the  ordinary  lodging 
house.  Slips  were  handed  to  all  the  large  au- 
dience who  filled  the  New  Theater,  but  only 

217 


218       JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

one  slip  was  filled  in  with  any  substantial 
promise.  Miss  Montague  and  all  her  friends 
read  this  slip  over  and  over  again  before  they 
understood  that  £1000  had  been  offered,  and 
then  a  little  later  Mr.  Pels  himself  was  able  to 
make  the  meaning  of  the  promise  clear.  He 
was  not  interested  in  mere  working  machines, 
he  wanted  human  beings.  He  was  very  glad 
for  Jewish  working  girls  to  have  a  home,  but 
insisted  that  some  sort  of  garden  should  be  pro- 
vided. It  was  therefore  through  Mr.  Fels  that 
the  roof-garden  was  made  at  the  Emily  Harris 
Home,  and  on  summer  afternoons  and  hot  eve- 
nings, girls  of  all  nationalities  are  reaping  the 
advantage  of  his  great  thoughtfulness. 

"After  Mr.  Fels  had  once  become  inter- 
ested in  the  Club  and  Home,  he  remained  in 
touch  with  the  workers  and  members.  On  sev- 
eral occasions,  he  invited  parties  of  girls  to 
visit  his  country  house  and  gave  them  delight- 
ful afternoons.  His  visitors  always  felt  at 
home  at  Bickley  and  they  always  considered 
that  their  host  was  the  youngest  of  the  party. 

"It  was  Mr.  Fels'  pleasure  to  invite  men 
and  women  of  knowledge  and  culture  who 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  219 

would  interest  the  girls  and  enlarge  their  out- 
look on  life,  and  he  himself  did  not  lose  any  op- 
portunity of  giving  them  some  understand- 
ing of  the  great  land  problem.  So  long  as 
the  West  Central  Club  and  the  Emily  Harris 
Home  exist,  the  name  of  Joseph  Fels  will  be 
remembered  not  as  that  of  a  mere  benefactor 
but  as  that  of  a  real  and  understanding 
friend." 

In  other  more  important  ways  did  Mr. 
Fels  manifest  an  interest  in  the  affairs  of  his 
race.  The  treatment  of  the  Jews  in  Russia 
was  a  matter  of  intense  and  recurring  concern, 
and  he  took  a  large  part  in  efforts  to  alleviate 
their  condition.  This  work  brought  him  into 
association  with  Mr.  Zangwill  in  whom  he 
found  that  combination  of  dreamer  and  worker 
which  always  made  to  him  an  irresistible  ap- 
peal. Mr.  Fels  was  from  the  outset  inter- 
ested in  the  Jewish  Territorial  Movement,  but 
rather  as  an  outlet  for  his  own  economic  plans 
than  as  an  end  in  itself.  This  close  connec- 
tion with  movements  towards  Jewish  coloniza- 
tion makes  his  attitude  and  conclusions  of  suffi- 
cient value  to  record. 


220       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Probably  the  most  distinctive  Jewish  prod- 
uct of  this  generation  is  the  Zionist  Movement. 
It  is  rooted  in  the  profoundest  of  racial  senti- 
ments and  its  motive  has  existed  ever  since  the 
great  dispersion.  That  Jews  will  some  day 
gather  from  the  ends  of  the  earth  to  their 
ancient  home,  with  institutions  and  customs 
safely  guarded  through  all  the  ages,  with  blood 
kept  pure  and  racial  unity  intact,  that  politi- 
cal and  religious  freedom  would  be  again 
achieved,  is  a  dream  that  lies  near  the  heart  of 
every  true  son  of  Israel.  It  has,  in  this 
day,  flowered  out  into  definitely  conceived  plan 
and  intent,  with  a  great  organization  and  an 
immense  aggregation  of  capital.  The  only 
bar  to  the  realization  of  the  great  hope  has 
seemed  to  be  that  Palestine  lay  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Turk.  It  is  within  the  world  of 
possibility  that  the  present  war  will  remove 
this  disability  and  it  will  be  seen  how  much 
of  seriousness  underlies  the  movement 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Zionism,  powerful 
as  it  is  in  its  appeal,  has  failed  to  command  the 
assent  of  numbers  of  the  Jewish  community. 
A  large  section,  feeling  with  no  less  intensity 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  221 

the  national  ambition,  believed  that  the  associa- 
tions of  Palestine  would  be  but  poor  compensa- 
tion for  what  they  considered  its  lack  of  pro- 
ductiveness. If  the  chief  object  is  the  attain- 
ment of  political  and  religious  liberty,  the  abil- 
ity to  practice  customs  and  develop  institu- 
tions distinctively  Jewish,  this  after  all  could 
be  best  realized  in  a  region  sufficiently  favored 
by  nature  not  to  render  prosperity  impossible. 
Even  so,  the  difficulty  is  sufficiently  great  as 
the  habitable  world  has  been  swallowed  by  the 
voracious  nations  of  modern  Europe.  Not- 
withstanding the  difficulty,  the  movement 
which  represents  this  attitude,  the  Jewish  Ter- 
ritorial Organization  known  as  the  ITO,  has 
explored  a  number  of  regions  and  investigated 
political  possibilities  in  a  practical  way.  Mis- 
sions of  scientific  experts  were  sent  out  to  re- 
port upon  Cyrenaica  and  Angola.  The  result 
was  discouraging.  These  regions  did  not  ap- 
pear to  the  ITO  leaders  much  better  than  Pal- 
estine. 

Mr.  Fels'  knowledge  of  artificially  pro- 
duced colonies  was  probably  more  extensive 
and  profound  than  that  of  any  other  man  of 


222       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

the  generation.  It  had  been  secured  through 
much  disappointment  to  expectation  and  much 
sacrifice  of  money.  He  was  aware  that  a  mere 
aggregation  of  families  does  not  constitute  a 
community,  as  it  does  not  imply  the  presence 
of  cohesive  forces  which  are,  in  the  main,  of 
natural  origin  and  slow  growth.  If,  however, 
these  factors  are  implicit  he  conceived  it  pos- 
sible to  stimulate  a  rapid  development  and  thus 
give  that  adjustment  of  thought  and  activity 
that  would  unify  a  group  into  a  community. 
There  must  be  present,  he  always  believed, 
some  common  participation  in  an  ethical,  or 
spiritual,  or  intellectual  interest.  The  great 
difficulty  in  economically  initiated  colonies 
which  he  had  helped  to  establish  both  in 
America  and  in  England,  was  to  bring  people 
together  for  extra-economic  purposes.  Even 
for  the  small  group  of  families  of  a  score  or 
more  at  Mayland,  he  established  school,  amuse- 
ment and  reading  rooms,  and  provided  as  well 
as  he  could  addresses  and  series  of  lectures  on 
a  great  variety  of  topics.  This  side  of  com- 
munity life  can  never  be  forced.  It  can  only 
be  made  easy  of  exercise  in  its  incipient  stages 


LATER  ACTIVITIES 

if  some  disposition  is  already  present.  If  it 
continued  permanently  absent,  Mr.  Fels  was 
aware  that,  however  prosperous  the  members 
of  the  group  might  be,  it  was  still  merely  an 
aggregation  and  not  a  community.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  a  colony  of  Jews  would  not  fail 
through  lack  of  spiritual  cohesion.  This  is  in- 
deed the  most  powerful  factor  that  would  be 
involved,  and  has  seemed  to  supporters  of  the 
Zionist  movement  an  adequate  basis  for  colon- 
ization. Mr.  Fels  shared  the  opinion  of  Mr. 
Zangwill,  that  conditions  entailing  permanent 
poverty  would  ultimately  result  in  failure, 
however  close  might  be  the  communism  of  poli- 
tical and  spiritual  purpose.  Such  a  colony 
would  probably  appeal  only  to  members  of 
the  race  dwelling  in  countries  of  extreme  op- 
pression, and  even  there,  under  the  most  ill- 
favored  conditions.  The  Jew,  after  all,  is  no 
more  called  upon  to  renounce  worldly  pros- 
perity than  other  races,  and  Mr.  Fels  was  quite 
aware  that  he  would  refuse  to  do  so.  For 
Jewish  colonization  then,  the  economic  ques- 
tion is  of  paramount  importance,  and  the  one 
regarding  which  the  makers  of  colonies  seem 


224       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

most  ignorant.  It  is  within  the  memory  of 
some  that  a  band  of  enthusiastic  Australian 
socialists  conceived  the  idea  of  realizing  their 
Utopia  in  South  America.  With  their  own 
ship  and  an  abundance  of  goods  they  crossed 
the  ocean  and  founded  "New  Australia"  in 
the  garden  land  of  Paraguay.  It  is  part  of 
the  irony  of  fate  that  the  inspiration  of  eco- 
nomic idealism  should  plant  their  community 
in  a  region  where  there  could  be  no  market 
facilities  for  two  generations.  Twelve  miles 
of  road  through  a  swamp  have  been  their  un- 
doing. What  they  produced  they  could  not 
place  upon  the  market. 

To  the  same  country  came  a  band  of  Ger- 
mans headed  by  Dr.  Foerster,  brother-in-law 
of  Nietzsche,  to  found  a  "New  Germany,"  and 
the  colony  seeking  the  same  perfection  of  in- 
ternal organization  was  planted  in  a  remote 
region  with  impossible  communications. 
There  can  be  no  escape  from  the  economic 
world  with  hope  of  permanent  survival.  Any 
colonist  must  feel  in  time  that  he  has  some 
right  to  material  prosperity  and  will  inevitably 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  225 

go  in  search  of  it.  His  knowledge  of  all  these 
and  other  experiments  in  colonization  made  it 
seem  to  Mr.  Fels,  as  to  Mr.  Zangwill,  that 
their  chief  concern  was  to  find  for  Jewish  col- 
onies places  well  favored  by  nature,  with  ad- 
equate means  of  communication. 

But  Mr.  Fels'  insight  carried  him  even 
further.  Given  a  colony  of  the  most  perfect 
spiritual  communism  and  endowed  with  an  ad- 
equate supply  of  natural  resources  available 
for  production  and  exchange,  there  was  still 
lacking  an  element  of  assurance  that  the  colony 
would  subserve  its  noble  purpose.  Mere  free- 
dom from  external  oppression  is  no  guarantee 
against  internal  tyranny,  and  Mr.  Fels  could 
not  see  that  servitude  of  Jew  to  Jew  was  much 
better  than  servitude  of  Jew  to  Gentile.  That 
his  race  contains  some  proportion  of  voracious 
members,  he  did  not  doubt;  in  fact  he  was 
acquainted  with  some  of  them.  It  was  there- 
fore his  desire  that  the  economy  of  the  col- 
onies should  from  the  start  provide  adequate 
protection  against  monopolistic  slavery.  The 
utter  simplicity  and  effectiveness  of  what  he 


226       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

urged  may  be  seen  in  the  following  quotation 
by  Mrs.  Lona  Ingham  Robinson: 

"Suppose  a  few  hundred  people  obtain  ac- 
cess to  a  fertile,  uninhabited  island  and  set  out 
to  colonize  it.  They  recognize  that  all  sites 
or  selections  cannot  possess  equal  advantages, 
that  some  will  be  wooded,  some  not,  some  high, 
some  low,  near  water  or  otherwise,  some  near 
centers  of  trade,  some  far  out,  some  large, 
some  small  and  so  on.  They  inspect  and  make 
a  plot  of  the  grounds  and  each  family  or  adult 
person  makes  a  selection  with  the  full  under- 
standing that  while  the  whole  island  belongs 
to  all,  the  various  locations  must  necessarily 
vary  in  desirability  or  become  more  valuable 
with  the  increase  of  people.  So  the  colonists 
equalize  their  holdings  something  like  this: 

"The  least  desirable  or  perhaps  the  smallest 
lot  or  site  in  use  will  be  taken  as  a  basis  to 
compute  all  the  others  by.  Recognizing  that 
the  occupant  of  the  least  advantageous  site  has 
left  all  the  better  or  bigger  locations  for  the 
others,  or  has  had  it  left  to  him  by  others, 
while  the  whole  is  as  much  his  as  theirs,  it  is 
agreed  that  he  shall  occupy  his  holding  free. 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  227 

All  the  others,  having  better  locations,  agree 
now  to  pay  annually  into  the  collective  fund 
sums  equal  to  the  advantage,  expressed  in 
money,  their  sites  have  over  the  poorest  site  in 
use.  This  collective  fund  would  represent  all 
the  various  advantages  in  excess  of  the  poorest 
lot  in  use. 

"Now  that  these  various  inequalities  are 
taken  off,  paid  into  the  public  fund,  the  col- 
onists all  stand  practically  alike  in  their  hold- 
ings. They  have  paid  all  the  excess  values 
into  the  treasury.  When  this  fund  is  straight- 
way used  for  public  purposes,  roads,  schools, 
fire  protection,  town  hall,  library,  etc.,  in  which 
all  share  alike,  they  have  worked  out  trium- 
phantly the  problem  of  equal  rights  to  the  use 
of  the  island.  As  years  go  on  and  increase  of 
population  and  trade  increase  the  value  of  all 
their  holdings,  their  public  fund  grows  larger 
just  in  proportion  as  they  need  more  improve- 
ments. So  their  land  values  being  sufficient 
for  their  expenses,  no  other  taxes  are  thought 
of.  Whatever  private  means  the  colonists 
brought  with  them  or  earned  by  labor  after- 
ward are  neither  listed  nor  rated.  Every  one 


228      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

has  the  worth  of  what  he  was  assessed,  for  the 
use  of  his  location.  This  assessment  is  what 
he  pays  all  the  other  co-owners  for  exclusive 
use  of  his  apportionment." 

Shortly  after  he  made  Mr.  Zangwill's  ac- 
quaintance, Mr.  Fels  became  a  member  of  the 
council  of  the  "I TO"  and  thenceforward  took 
an  active  interest  in  its  plans.  He  was  a  fre- 
quent attendant  at  its  council  meetings  and,  as 
Mr.  Zangwill  gives  testimony,  of  much  aid  by 
reason  of  the  shrewd  practicality  of  his  judg- 
ments. As  plan  after  plan  was  considered, 
and  had  to  be  placed  on  one  side,  Mr.  Fels 
began  to  undertake  some  investigations  on  his 
own  account.  When  he  visited  Diaz  in  1907, 
one  of  his  proposals  was  for  a  Jewish  settle- 
ment in  Mexico.  He  had  inquiries  made 
about  South  America.  A  letter  of  inquiry  he 
wrote  about  the  latter  possibility  is  not  with- 
out its  interest. 

"I  may  not  before  have  mentioned  to  you 
that,  being  a  Jew,  I  am  greatly  interested  in 
the  future  of  my  people,  and  for  several  years 
I  have  been  co-operating  with  such  men  as 
Israel  Zangwill.  .  .  .  His  organization  has 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  229 

been  on  the  look-out  for  a  country  in  which 
the  oppressed  Jews  of  Russia  and  other  lands 
might  be  invited  to  settle,  where  a  measure  at 
least  of  autonomy  might  be  had.  Within  the 
last  month  an  expedition  has  been  dispatched 
to  investigate  the  Angola  district  on  the  West 
Coast  of  Africa.  .  .  . 

"My  interest  in  this  matter  is  very  great, 
of  course,  and  grows  as  I  see  the  constant 
cruelties  which  are  inflicted  upon  my  people, 
defenseless  as  they  are  under  the  Russian  Gov- 
ernment. Whether  or  not  autonomy  could  be 
gained  by  settlement  in  one  or  other  of  the 
South  American  countries  is  a  matter  about 
which  I  should  like  to  consult  with  you.  I 
believe,  for  instance,  that  Paraguay  has  only 
700,000  population.  That  is  a  country  about 
as  large  as  Great  Britain,  and  I  believe  a  settle- 
ment of  people  could  well  be  carried  on  in  that 
country.  Of  course,  I  have  in  mind  the  right 
kind  of  landlords,  and  my  interest  is  not  un- 
mixed with  my  obsession  about  the  Single 
Tax." 

It  is  interesting  to  note  that  he  grew  the 
more  interested  in  the  movement  as  its  possi- 


230       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

bilities  verged  more  and  more  towards  the  his- 
toric birthplace  of  the  Jews  in  Palestine.  It 
is  not,  indeed,  unlikely  that  he  would,  in  the 
end,  have  become  a  Zionist.  What  is  certain 
is  this — that  he  had  been  gripped  by  the  vision 
of  a  Jewish  people  with  a  cultural  center  of  its 
own,  standing  to  the  West  as  Greece  stood  to 
the  East  two  thousand  years  ago.  To  him  the 
Jews  were  essentially  a  race  of  missionaries, 
born  to  preach  by  book  and  by  example  the 
gospel  in  which  he  himself  believed.  The  state 
must  in  its  constitution  set  out  from  a  basis  of 
economic  justice,  that  is  to  say  its  economic 
philosophy  would  be  the  philosophy  of  Henry 
George.  There  appeared  to  him  something 
almost  of  a  poetic  justice  in  the  Jews  thus  giv- 
ing to  the  world  the  example  of  freedom  as  in 
an  earlier  day  they  had  given  birth  to  religion. 
He  worked  steadily  to  promote  the  end  in 
view.  Friends  were  written  to,  his  audiences, 
almost  invariably,  learned  something  of  his 
thought,  and  Jewish  Single  Taxers  would  in- 
evitably receive  whatever  he  could  procure  of 
the  literature  of  the  subject.  One  of  the  last 
conversations  he  had  was  an  expression  of  his 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  281 

high  hopes  in  this  regard.  It  is  now  partic- 
ularly interesting  to  note  in  one  of  his  letters 
the  expression  of  an  anxiety  that  Mr.  Louis 
Brandeis  should  assume  the  leadership  of  the 
American  movement.  Certainly  the  growing 
association  with  it  of  his  wife  would  have  met 
with  his  hearty  approval,  would  have  been,  in- 
deed, the  realization  of  his  own  desire. 

For  it  is  clear  that  his  previous  attitude 
toward  Zionism,  especially  as  concerns  the 
economic  inadequacy  of  Palestine,  was  due  to 
insufficient  knowledge.  In  late  years  actual 
colonization  on  a  considerable  scale  and  in  a 
completely  scientific  manner  has  been  success- 
fully initiated.  There  are  some  fourteen  thou- 
sand agricultural  colonists  well  established, 
and,  until  the  war  ended  their  export  trade,  as 
prosperous  as  could  be  expected.  The  soil 
gives  a  reasonable  response  as  soon  as  scientific 
tillage  is  substituted  for  the  abuse  which  passed 
amongst  the  Arabs  as  agriculture.  The  ex- 
ported products  meet  a  great  demand  in  the 
world's  markets,  and  there  is  every  reason  to 
believe  that  in  the  course  of  a  generation  or 
so  Palestine  may  be  remade  into  a  garden. 


232       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

Another  factor  in  the  movement  would 
have  been  decisive  with  Mr.  Fels.  He  had 
offered  support  on  a  large  scale  to  the  ITO  on 
the  single  condition  that  the  system  of  land 
tenure  be  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of 
Henry  George,  which  are  also  the  principles 
of  Moses  and  an  integral  part  of  the  Jewish 
code.  His  rebuff  was  possibly  due  to  the  fact 
that  some  of  the  prominent  supporters  of  the 
ITO  were  of  the  great  Jewish  landlord  class 
in  England,  which  made  it  difficult  for  the 
movement  to  be  entirely  democratic.  Zionism, 
on  the  other  hand,  has  affirmed  its  abhorrence 
of  oligarchic  control,  and  in  the  constitution 
of  the  National  Fund,  its  agency  for  purchase 
and  tenure  of  land,  it  has  made  clear  its  inten- 
tion to  base  colonization  on  the  principle  of 
permanent  state  ownership  of  land,  and  the 
utilization  of  rentals  as  the  source  of  revenue 
for  the  state.  This  frank  adoption  of  single 
tax  as  an  integral  part  of  its  plan  and  intent 
would  have  commended  Zionism  to  Mr.  Fels 
as  worthy  of  his  most  zealous  support  as  soon 
as  the  way  was  found  open  to  realization. 

The  Jews  were  not  the  only  persecuted 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  233 

race  in  whom  he  felt  deep  interest.  For  in- 
justice of  any  kind  he  had  the  very  deepest 
abhorrence  and  that  feeling,  indeed,  lay  at  the 
bottom  of  most  of  his  activities.  He  took  a 
large  part  in  the  famous  McQueen  case.  Dur- 
ing the  latter's  imprisonment  he  made  it  his 
care  that  Mrs.  McQueen  should  not  suffer. 
He  obtained  testimony  in  England  from  labor 
members  of  Parliament,  trade  union  leaders, 
and  business  men  as  to  Mr.  McQueen's  record 
in  England.  Wherever  he  was  informed  that 
Mr.  McQueen  had  at  any  time  been  employed, 
he  visited  to  obtain  evidence.  He  searched 
the  English  police  records.  He  wrote  to  many 
men  of  influence  in  the  matter,  members  of  the 
court  of  Pardons  and  the  Governor  of  New 
Jersey.  He  offered  to  give  Mr.  McQueen  em- 
ployment on  his  release.  He  got  H.  G. 
Wells  to  visit  McQueen  and  write  up  the  case 
in  "The  Future  in  America."  The  recollec- 
tion of  the  Rev.  A.  W.  Wishart,  who  was 
mainly  instrumental  in  securing  Mr.  Mc- 
Queen's pardon,  gives  a  characteristic  picture 
of  Mr.  Fels.  Mr.  Wishart  tells  how  he  be- 
came interested  in  the  case  and  wrote  a  pam- 


234       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

phlet  about  it.  "About  this  time,"  he  con- 
tinues, "I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Pels  say- 
ing that  he  had  read  of  the  case  in  the  London 
papers  and  wanted  to  know  what  he  could  do 
to  help  me.  As  I  then  had  invested  about 
$150  or  $200  of  my  own  money  in  the  case, 
which  I  could  ill  afford,  and  as  I  saw  other 
expenses  ahead  of  me,  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Fels 
that  some  financial  help  would  be  most  timely, 
especially  if  I  was  to  carry  on  the  case  any 
further.  He  sent  me  ...  a  cheque.  Very 
soon  afterwards  he  wired  me  he  was  coming  to 
Trenton  to  see  me,  which  he  did.  He  stayed 
at  my  house  all  night  and  we  visited  several 
judges  of  the  Board  of  Pardons  who  were  also 
on  the  Court  of  Errors  and  Appeals  Bench. 
Mr.  Fels  also  went  with  me  to  Paterson.  It 
was  a  bitterly  cold  day,  and  we  tramped  all 
day  long,  visiting  business  men,  everywhere 
meeting  with  rebuffs  and  sometimes  almost 
with  insults,  because  it  was  believed  by  the 
Paterson  men  that  McQueen  was  a  dangerous 
criminal,  and  that  we  might  be  in  better  busi- 
ness than  in  trying  to  secure  his  release  from 
the  penitentiary.  Mr.  Fels  sent  my  brief  on 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  235 

the  case  to  innumerable  people,  and  wrote  very; 
many  letters  which  tended  to  interest  influen- 
tial men  in  the  case.  Little  by  little  friends 
sprang  up  on  many  sides.  After  two  years  of 
such  battling,  we  succeeded  in  convincing  the 
Board  of  Pardons  that  McQueen  should  be  re- 
leased." 

Of  his  relations  with  an  actual  criminal  a 
word  may  be  told.  Mr.  Fels  came  in  contact 
with  a  prisoner  of  gipsy  blood  who  had  spent 
many  years  of  his  life  in  prison.  Kindly  treat- 
ment soon  won  his  confidence  and  little  by  lit- 
tle he  told  Mr.  Fels  his  story.  The  latter  per- 
suaded him  to  write  it  down.  From  the  torn 
little  bits  of  dirty  paper,  from  an  ill-written, 
ill-spelt  and  utterly  disconnected  narrative 
there  was  ultimately  pieced  together  a  con- 
demnation of  the  conditions  in  a  certain  state 
penitentiary  such  as  no  words  can  describe. 
Horrified  at  this,  Mr.  Fels  had  a  fair  copy  of 
the  man's  narrative  made  and  sent  it  to  the 
Governor  of  the  State  concerned.  He  re- 
ceived no  reply.  He  wrote  and  urged  that 
such  a  revelation  suggested  at  least  the  need 
for  an  inquiry.  To  this  response  was  made 


236       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

that  the  Governor  could  take  no  steps  in  the 
matter.  Mr.  Fels  was  furious  at  this  rebuff. 
It  was,  as  he  said,  at  least  worth  while  to  have 
the  indictment  investigated;  it  might  happen 
to  be  true  and  the  Governor  would  have  the 
satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  had  remedied 
an  injustice.  To  this  request,  also,  he  received 
a  curt  refusal.  He  could  stand  it  no  longer. 
He  wrote  to  the  Governor,  demanding  an  im- 
mediate inquiry  at  which  a  representative  nom- 
inated by  himself  should  be  present ;  otherwise 
he  threatened  to  publish  the  statement  and  the 
correspondence  in  every  journal  in  the  United 
States.  Within  a  month  the  inquiry  had  been 
held  to  his  satisfaction. 

This  unceasing  hatred  of  injustice  was 
shown  in  his  ever-ready  help  to  the  Russian 
revolutionists.  Time  and  again  he  was  told 
of  some  escaped  radical's  distress ;  and  his  eager 
interest  in  the  event  and  his  anxiety  to  be  of 
more  than  financial  service  were  at  least  as 
much  appreciated  as  his  actual  monetary  aid. 
One  instance  of  his  sympathy  in  this  connec- 
tion is  too  remarkable  to  go  unnoticed. 

In  1907,  a  Congress  of  all  the  members  of 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  237 

the  Social  Democratic  Party  in  the  Russian 
Douma  was  arranged  to  meet  at  Vibourg  in 
Finland.  It  was  driven  out  by  the  authorities 
and  endeavored  to  assemble  in  Sweden.  This 
was  forbidden  on  complaint  from  the  Russian 
Government,  and  a  similar  prohibition  came 
from  other  Continental  countries.  They  were, 
therefore,  driven  to  London.  When  they  ar- 
rived, their  funds  were  exhausted  and  so  far 
from  being  able  to  carry  on  their  conferences, 
the  delegates,  over  a  hundred  in  number,  were 
in  serious  danger  of  starvation.  Some  one 
suggested  an  application  to  Mr.  Fels  who  at 
once  loaned  them  eighteen  hundred  pounds. 
The  money  was  repaid  in  but  small  part,  not 
only  from  the  poverty  of  the  delegates,  but 
because  so  many  of  them  were  sacrificed  later 
by  the  Russian  authorities. 

Yet  these  activities  were  but  deviations. 
The  Single  Tax  was,  after  all,  the  main  ob- 
ject he  had  in  view,  and  to  that  he  endeavored 
to  subordinate  everything  else.  He  watched 
the  progress  of  the  Fels  Commission  with  the 
deepest  anxiety.  Once  it  was  clear  that  the 
method  was  successful,  he  began  to  make  simi- 


238       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

lar  plans  for  most  of  the  countries  in  which  he 
interested  himself.  To  Canada  he  gave  a  dol- 
lar for  every  dollar  raised  by  the  Single  Taxers 
in  that  country ;  to  Norway,  Sweden  and  Den- 
mark, a  kroner  for  every  kroner  raised  by  the 
Scandinavians.  Similarly  with  Australia, 
New  Zealand  and  Germany.  Where  the 
movement,  as  in  France,  Spain,  China,  seemed 
not.  sufficiently  advanced  to  make  this  method 
advisable,  he  gave  a  direct  subvention  to  the 
local  or  national  groups  concerned.  In  Eng- 
land, for  the  most  part,  his  contributions  were 
made  directly  through  the  United  Committee. 
He  realized  that  the  hereditary  political  asso- 
ciations of  the  great  landowners  had  made  the 
English  struggle  unique  and  that  the  move- 
ment would  probably  be  successful  only  by  the 
steady  permeation  of  the  Liberal  and  Labor 
members  of  Parliament.  Towards  the  close 
of  his  life,  he  began  to  be  convinced  of  the  need 
for  the  erection  of  some  central  body  to  unite 
in  a  single  organization  the  varied  activities  in 
Europe.  Had  he  lived,  it  is  probable  that  he 
would  have  created  a  European  Commission 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  239 

of  this  kind ;  this  idea  is  now  being  carried  into 
effect. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  Mr.  Fels  re- 
garded his  function  in  the  movement  as  solely 
that  of  a  creator  of  its  endowments.  He  was, 
on  the  contrary,  very  active  in  the  repression 
of  any  such  view.  The  number  of  requests  for 
his  support  must  have  been  relatively  enor- 
mous, but  he  constantly  refused  his  assistance 
until  he  was  given  evidence  of  local  activity. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  his  duty  was  rather  to 
stimulate  the  Single  Taxers  themselves  to  ac- 
tion than  to  allow  them  to  consider  that  any 
funds  they  deemed  necessary  would  be  at  once 
forthcoming.  If  he  had  made  any  general 
criticism  of  the  movement,  he  would  have  urged 
that  its  adherents  had  not  shown  themselves 
sufficiently  capable  of  disinterested  self-sacri- 
fice. A  movement,  he  said  again  and  again, 
never  advances  very  far  until  it  can  point  to 
its  martyrs.  It  was  for  that  reason  that  he 
limited  his  subscriptions  to  what  any  State  or 
district  could  itself  raise.  He  was  a  stimulus 
to  local  exertion,  a  kind  of  economic  gadfly 


240       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

who  stung  men  into  activity.  The  friend  who 
said  that  his  "speeches  made  you  feel  how  little 
you  had  done"  exactly  expressed  what  those 
speeches  set  out  to  achieve.  That  the  Joseph 
Fels  Commission  was  able  to  stem  the  tide  of 
apathy  which,  at  its  inception,  seemed  to  have 
overwhelmed  the  Single  Tax  movement,  there 
can  be  no  shadow  of  doubt.  Both  he  and  his 
coadjutors  continually  made  it  evident  that 
they  had  no  sort  of  sympathy  for  passive  ex- 
pressions of  adherence.  "The  greatest  thing," 
he  once  said,  "is  to  contribute  yourself;  next, 
give  your  money."  He  himself  fulfilled  both 
those  behests  in  spirit  as  well  as  in  letter. 

It  was  a  sign  of  reawakening  interest  when 
on  November  19th  and  20th,  1910,  the  Com- 
mission was  able  to  inaugurate  the  first  Single 
Tax  Conference.  It  was  an  interesting  oc- 
casion. Mr.  Fels  himself  was  present  and  took 
an  active  part  in  the  proceedings.  The  Com- 
mission reported  on  what  it  had  done,  and  ably 
withstood  the  fires  of  its  critics.  To  the  latter 
Mr.  Fels  made  a  characteristic  retort.  There 
had  been  much  agitation  directed — as  has  been 
already  noted — against  the  support  given  to 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  241 

the  Direct  Legislation  movement.  "I  want 
to  say,"  he  remarked,  "that  since  my  return  to 
this  country,  and  since  I  have  been  learning 
the  reasons  why  certain  things  have  been  done, 
I  am  in  perfect  agreement  with  the  work  of  the 
Commission." 

The  Conference  was  an  interesting  experi- 
ment in  democratic  organization.  It  was  a 
purely  informal  gathering  of  some  eighty  peo- 
ple from  fifteen  States  of  the  Union.  There 
was  no  set  program  beforehand.  Any  one 
could  introduce  a  resolution.  Every  type  of 
Single  Taxer,  humble  and  representative,  was 
present.  Every  one  who  had  taken  charge  of 
any  aspect  of  the  movement,  Mr.  Lincoln 
Steffens,  Mr.  Bolton  Hall,  Mr.  Daniel  Kiefer, 
Mr.  Louis  F.  Post,  Mr.  U'Ren,  Mr.  Fels  him- 
self, contributed  an  analysis  of  their  experi- 
ence. Mr.  Fels  also  told  something  of  the 
condition  of  things  in  Europe.  He  spoke  of 
the  budget  of  1909.  "The  land  clauses  in  the 
British  budget  were  put  there  to  stay.  Noth- 
ing that  any  party  can  do  will  stop  the  move- 
ment in  England.  Had  it  not  been  for  the 
land  clauses  in  the  budget,  the  Liberal  party 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

would  have  gone  down  to  defeat,  and  if  these 
clauses  are  cut  out  of  any  future  program  the 
party  will  go  down  to  defeat."  He  com- 
mented hopefully  on  the  movement  in  Sweden 
and  Denmark.  "In  Denmark,"  he  said,  "the 
question  of  the  taxation  of  land  values  is  better 
understood  than  anywhere  in  the  world.  One 
hundred  and  forty  thousand  small  farmers  in 
Denmark  with  an  average  of  less  than  twenty 
acres  apiece,  are  teaching  our  doctrines  every- 
where. In  many  of  the  public  schools  of  Den- 
mark you  will  see  pictures  of  Henry  George 
on  the  wall."  He  told  of  Spain  and  France, 
of  what,  under  his  inspiration,  Dr.  Macklin 
was  doing  in  China.  "I  had,"  says  a  friend 
who  was  present,  "a  wonderful  sense  of  his 
cosmopolitanism.  His  sympathy  seemed  so 
big  that  he  took  the  world  in  his  arms." 

A  year  later  the  movement  held  its  second 
congress  in  Chicago.  In  the  meantime  he  had 
visited  France  and  Germany  and  established 
definite  working  connections  in  both  countries. 
It  is  of  some  special  interest  that  in  Germany 
he  should  have  won  the  aid  and  friendship  of 
William  Schrameier  who  as  governor  of  Kiau- 


LATER  ACTIVITIES 

Chau,  had  been  successful  in  raising  the  entire 
revenue  of  that  colony  by  means  of  the  Single 
Tax.  In  England  he  was  mainly  concerned 
in  fighting  the  Insurance  Act,  to  which  he  was 
very  bitterly  opposed.  It  seemed  to  him  that 
the  act  marked  the  initiation  of  a  dangerously 
paternalistic  spirit  in  legislation.  It  pena- 
lized the  trade-unions  by  putting  the  benefits 
they  could  offer  against  those  to  be  offered  by 
the  great  insurance  companies.  And  he  was 
in  complete  disagreement  with  the  principle 
that  "the  contributions  of  the  healthy  must 
pay  for  the  sickness  of  the  unhealthy.  It 
seems  to  me  a  better  use  of  their  savings  to  put 
them  to  some  positive  purpose." 

In  the  early  winter  he  came  over  to  the 
United  States  and  on  November  23  he  was  in 
Chicago  for  the  second  conference  of  which  he 
had  been  elected  honorary  president.  Nearly 
two  hundred  people  were  present  at  its  general 
sessions  from  twenty  States  in  the  Union,  be- 
sides representatives  from  Great  Britain  and 
Canada.  Much  had  happened  since  the  pre- 
vious conference.  The  Commission  was  able 
to  report  a  preliminary  victory  in  Oregon  in 


244       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

the  passage  of  the  amendment  granting  home 
rule  in  taxation  to  counties.  Progress  along 
similar  lines,  though  without  definite  result, 
was  reported  in  Missouri,  Rhode  Island,  and 
Ohio,  in  all  of  which  the  Joseph  Fels  Fund  had 
taken  an  active  part.  The  American  Eco- 
nomic League  had  been  organized  under  the 
Commission  which  supplied  material  to  more 
than  300,  now  700,  newspapers.  The  Public 
had  been  supported,  literature  had  again  been 
distributed  on  an  enormous  scale.  The  Com- 
mission, on  the  whole,  had  good  reason  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  progress  of  its  efforts. 

The  Conference  discussed  every  aspect  of 
the  movement.  It  had  again  to  meet  the  criti- 
cism of  the  irreconcilables,  who  felt  that  the 
funds  should  be  devoted  to  Single  Tax  alone; 
but  they  were  unable  to  make  any  impression. 
Mr.  Fels  insisted  that  the  propaganda  should 
be  such  as  the  situation  seemed  to  demand,  and 
that  to  pin  the  movement  down  to  any  hard 
and  fast  lines  of  activity  would  be  largely  to 
render  it  ineffective.  He  told  of  his  activities 
in  Europe,  and  of  a  meeting  he  had  held  on 
the  Mauretania  which  Mr.  Croker,  the  well- 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  245 

known  Tammany  "Boss"  had  attended.  "I 
embarrassed  Mr.  Croker,"  he  said,  "by  asking 
him  why  he  had  been  one  of  the  crowd  that  had 
killed  Henry  George.  Croker  answered, 
after  some  hesitation,  'If  we  hadn't  killed  him, 
he  would  have  killed  us.' ' 

The  next  two  years  were  a  time  of  inces- 
sant activity  for  Mr.  Fels.  He  had  become  so 
identified  with  the  movement  that  the  demands 
made  by  it  upon  his  time  grew  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  He  was  being  continually  asked  for 
opinion,  criticism,  suggestion.  From  every 
part  of  the  world  came  invitation  after  invita- 
tion to  take  over  the  propaganda  of  the  move- 
ment. In  the  summer  of  1912,  he  paid  a  long 
visit  to  Norway,  Sweden,  and  Denmark,  in  the 
winter  to  Canada.  Everywhere  he  was  speak- 
ing once,  twice,  sometimes  three  times  daily, 
in  theaters,  churches,  synagogues,  clubs.  He 
was  drafting  briefs  of  evidence  for  the  Single 
Tax  to  municipal  commissions  on  taxation. 
He  was  unceasing  in  his  attention  to  the  press. 
In  1913  he  went  to  take  part  in  the  first  Single 
Tax  conference  ever  held  in  Spain,  where,  but 
a  year  before,  there  had  been  but  three  known 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

adherents.  A  characteristic  letter  of  this  year 
deserves  to  be  quoted  in  full.  The  then  Gov- 
ernor of  Alabama,  had  written  for  his  views 
on  the  revision  of  taxation  and  had  expressed 
his  own  opinion  in  these  terms:  "Under  the 
laws  as  they  now  exist  in  Alabama,  nearly  all 
personal  property  escapes  taxation.  I  am  in- 
clined to  believe  that  the  remedy  is  an  income 
tax."  To  Mr.  Pels,  of  course,  this  was  the 
rankest  heresy,  and  he  replied  as  follows: 

"It  was  good  to  get  your  cordial  and  kindly 
letter  of  the  24th  inst.  and  I  am  glad  to  hear 
directly  from  you  of  your  familiarity  with  the 
economic  philosophy  of  Henry  George.  I  am 
glad  to  note  it  is  your  intention  to  appoint  a 
voluntary  commission  for  the  purpose  of  revis- 
ing your  revenue  system,  it  being  your  inten- 
tion to  consider  carefully  the  question  of  per- 
sonal property  taxation. 

"You  tell  me  that  under  your  present  laws 
nearly  all  personal  property  escapes  taxation. 
Why  tax  any  personal  property? 

"Now,  my  dear  Governor,  those  things  we 
want  to  get  rid  of,  we  tax.  If  the  City  Council 
of  Montgomery  should  want  to  get  rid  of  dogs, 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  247 

they  would  put  a  tax  on  dogs  so  heavy  that  the 
dogs  would  disappear  without  much  ceremony. 
In  building  houses,  we  should  get  rid  of  win- 
dows if  a  tax  were  laid  on  windows,  as  is  now 
the  case  in  Belgium  I  believe,  and  was,  until 
sixty  years  ago,  in  England.  There  are  still 
to  be  seen  in  England  hundreds  of  cottages 
with  but  one  window — a  relic  of  that  foolish 
taxation. 

"So  I  am  rather  grieved  that  you  should 
incline  towards  an  income  tax  as  any  help 
whatever.  If  we  should  tax  personal  prop- 
erty of  any  kind,  we  make  it  more  difficult  for 
people  to  accumulate  personal  property,  and 
the  bigger  the  tax  we  put  on  a  house,  whether 
a  dwelling,  a  factory,  or  a  bank  building,  the 
fewer  of  them  will  be  put  up,  and  the  less 
money  will  be  invested  in  them,  simply  because 
of  this  taxation. 

"On  the  other  hand,  if  we  should  untax  in- 
dustry and  business,  by  placing  no  tax  at  all 
on  produce  of  labor,  including  buildings,  we 
shall  give  the  greatest  impetus  to  industry.  A 
question  then  arises,  of  course,  as  to  where  we 
shall  get  an  income  for  state,  county,  and  city 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

purposes.  My  answer  to  this  is  that  we  should 
find  out  the  site-value  of  every  piece  of  land 
in  Alabama,  based  upon  the  market  or  fair 
price  as  between  a  willing  buyer  and  a  willing 
seller,  and  then  place  a  tax  upon  this  assessed 
land  value.  Of  course,  the  thing  could  not  be 
done  in  a  year  or  ten  years  or  twenty  years,  but 
it  could  be  done  gradually  and  certainly,  with 
the  greatest  benefit  to  all  those  who  are  willing 
to  work.  It  would  ultimately  destroy  the 
speculator  in  land  values,  who  is  simply  a  par- 
asite upon  society. 

"Please  accept  the  enclosed  copy  of  'Prog- 
ress and  Poverty/  Its  author  seems  to  me 
perhaps  the  greatest  of  modern  prophets." 

The  early  winter  of  1913  Mr.  Fels  spent 
in  England.  There  was  much  on  his  mind. 
The  liberal  Government  had  imprisoned  Mr. 
Lansbury  and  the  hunger  strike  had  naturally 
not  been  without  its  effect  on  the  latter's  health. 
Mr.  Fels  decided  to  leave  for  America  and 
persuaded  Mr.  Lansbury  to  accompany  him. 
They  left  England  on  the  3rd  of  December  on 
the  Mauretania,  where  Mr.  Fels  held  his  usual 
meeting.  Little  was  done  in  America  until 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  249 

midway  in  January  when  the  fourth  confer- 
ence of  the  Fels  Commission  was  held  in  Wash- 
ington. The  Conference  met  in  a  happy 
mood.  "We  meet,"  announced  Mr.  Kiefer, 
the  Chairman  of  the  Commission,  "for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  movement  with 
Single  Tax  on  the  statute-book  of  two  States 
of  the  Union."  Real  advances  had  been  made 
in  Texas  and  Colorado  and — even  more  signifi- 
cantly— in  Pennsylvania  and  New  York. 

The  conference  had  much  business  to  trans- 
act, but  Mr.  Fels  took  very  little  part  in  its 
active  discussions.  So  quiet  and  subdued  was 
he  that  some  delegates  were  actually  unaware 
of  his  presence,  until  he  was  pointed  out  to 
them.  His  attitude  was  remarkably  com- 
posed. There  was  about  him  a  sense  of  re- 
pose, very  rare  in  him,  and  this  dimly  seemed 
to  reflect  over  the  conference.  When  he  did 
speak,  it  was  of  his  eagerness  to  live  to  carry 
on  his  work;  yet  he  urged  that  his  hopes  were 
now  secure  and  that  he  was  certain  of  the  con- 
firmation of  his  efforts.  He  told  his  friends 
that  the  great  thing  was  an  insistence  on  the 
spirit  of  society.  "You  are  to  look  on  its  in- 


250       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

stitutions  as  an  expression  of  its  soul,"  he  as- 
serted, "you  are  to  make  that  soul  manifest  in 
all  you  think  and  feel  and  do."  Once  there 
came  a  flash  of  the  old  fighting  spirit  when  Mr. 
Gompers,  the  president  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor,  spoke  of  the  strength  of  the 
protected  interests  in  America.  "At  this 
juncture,"  says  the  official  report,  "Mr.  Fels 
presented  Mr.  Gompers  with  a  leather-bound 
copy  of  'Progress  and  Poverty,'  the  book  cost- 
ing 48  cents  in  England  and  70  cents  in  the 
United  States,  an  object  lesson  in  Free 
Trade."  But,  for  the  rest,  his  friends  noticed 
and  wondered  at  that  strange  calm. 

He  returned  to  Philadelphia  at  the  close 
of  the  Conference,  staying  as  in  the  last  few 
years  he  had  always  stayed,  with  two  very  dear 
friends,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Earl  Barnes.  He  was 
very  occupied  with  business  affairs,  and  grew 
more  and  more  tired  and  depressed.  But  there 
seemed  no  premonition  of  serious  illness. 

By  the  tenth  of  February,  1914,  when  the 
business  affairs  that  had  caused  him  anxiety 
were  finally  completed,  he  was  evidently  far 
from  well.  He  suffered  much  from  fever  and 


LATER  ACTIVITIES  251 

it  was  very  difficult,  as  always,  to  persuade 
him  to  keep  his  mind  from  business  mat- 
ters. By  the  nineteenth,  it  was  obvious  that  he 
was  in  serious  danger  from  pneumonia.  He 
fought  splendidly  against  the  enervation 
caused  by  the  fever  and  talked  much  of  his 
plans  and  hopes.  On  the  twenty-first  he 
seemed  much  better.  But  as  the  night  pro- 
gressed he  grew  rapidly  worse,  and  it  was  ob- 
vious that  his  strength  was  nearly  exhausted. 
It  was  his  will  alone  that  kept  him  alive. 
Early  in  the  morning  he  spoke  to  Mrs.  Fels 
and  tried  to  convey  the  thought  that  per- 
haps his  death  would  be  a  gift  of  life  to  the 
movement ;  then  he  could  face  it  fearlessly  and 
gladly.  Just  as  the  first  gleam  of  the  sun 
heralded  the  day  he  passed.  It  seemed  right 
and  splendid  that  he  should  die  thus,  fronting 
the  dawn. 


XVI 

Personal 

T  1 1HE  story  of  the  life  work  of  Joseph  Fels 
•*•  cannot  be  concluded  without  an  attempt 
to  bring  the  vivid  personality  of  the  man  before 
the  reader.  In  stature  he  was  short,  five  feet 
two,  but  so  well  proportioned  that  he  never 
seemed  small.  His  beard  which  he  kept  closely 
cut  was  grey,  but  the  thick  fringe  of  hair,  for 
he  was  almost  bald,  kept  its  color  of  black. 
He  always  wore  a  soft  hat. 

On  his  way  home  from  business,  he  could 
be  seen  daily  turning  the  corner  of  the  street 
and  covering  the  short  intervening  space  with 
his  quick,  decisive  step,  his  head  turned  slightly 
to  the  left  and  a  tendency  to  sway  a  bit  to  the 
left  in  walking.  In  his  left  hand  he  carried  a 
small  dispatch  case  filled  with  letters,  and  un- 
der his  right  arm  he  invariably  carried  a  mass 
of  papers.  While  he  walked  along  he  took 

252 


PERSONAL  253 

out  his  door  key,  and  the  door  was  opened  al- 
most without  stopping.  Once  in  the  hall  he 
laid  all  of  his  things  on  the  table,  hung  up  his 
coat  and  hat,  cleared  his  throat  and  ran  up  the 
stairs  into  the  study.  A  cheery  "Howdy"  to 
everyone,  a  quick  peck  of  a  kiss  after  carefully 
rubbing  his  mouth  with  his  coat  sleeve,  for 
every  woman  in  the  room  except  his  wife,  whom 
he  kissed  with  infinite  tenderness,  a  pretended 
fight  with  the  little  boys  if  they  were  around, 
and  an  effect  of  clearing  the  room  of  any  dead 
air  or  thoughts — and  you  have  his  entrance  into 
the  place  where  he  lived.  If  it  is  near  the  din- 
ner hour  he  tells  you  he  is  starved.  He  ate  in 
moderation  and  the  simplest  table  was  always 
a  sumptuous  one  to  Joseph  Fels.  If  urged 
to  take  more  of  something  he  liked  he  would 
say,  "Lordy,  son,  there's  no  room  but  I'll  take 
a  little  to  fill  in  the  cracks."  If  he  came  late  as 
he  did  sometimes,  his  shy  manner,  as  if  he  was 
almost  expecting  a  scolding,  sent  everyone 
eagerly  hurrying  to  wait  on  him. 

Mr.  Fels  was  restless  and  could  never  sit 
quietly.  If  there  was  reading  aloud  he  would 
write  letters  at  the  desk;  if  there  was  talk  he 


JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

would  stand  with  his  back  to  the  fire  or  walk 
around  the  room.  This  cheerful,  alert,  joy- 
ous nature  that  loved  to  sing  snatches  of  paro- 
dies or  to  quote  "The  bigger  the  rabbit  the  more 
whiter  his  tail,"  could  sometimes  swing  to  the 
other  extreme  and  bring  into  the  room  or  into 
the  hearts  of  those  who  loved  him  a  gloom  that 
was  like  the  blackness  of  night.  Then  he 
scarcely  ate,  his  smile  was  forced,  and  when  he 
conquered  these  depressions  he  came  out  of 
them  tired,  with  a  quiet  sadness  that  finally 
merged  into  his  usual  sunny  courageous  nature. 
Just  as  there  were  two  sides  to  Joseph  Fels' 
disposition  so  there  were  two  sides  in  his  reac- 
tion to  people.  He  spared  nothing  of  time, 
money  or  generous  judgment  in  helping  in- 
dividuals. On  the  other  hand  if  he  felt  a  lack 
in  a  friend's  attitude  toward  him  or  toward 
the  cause  for  which  he  worked,  he  was  capable 
of  turning  all  his  generous  impulses  into  criti- 
cism and  hurt  feeling  that  no  amount  of  rea- 
son could  disperse.  In  business  relations  he 
liked  to  feel  out  his  man,  often  holding  him 
up  in  some  deal  to  the  penny,  and  then  turning 
around  and  giving  the  man  as  a  friend  much  of 


PERSONAL  255 

everything  he  had  to  give.  He  once  said,  "I 
am  two  men.  With  my  right  hand  I  can  skin 
a  man  for  five  cents  while  with  my  left  hand  I 
can  give  away  five  thousand  dollars."  He  al- 
ways wanted  to  avoid  killing  the  divine  spark 
in  any  human  being.  One  morning  a  friend 
after  having  fed  a  number  of  tramps  said  to 
the  next  one,  "I  will  give  you  your  breakfast 
but  you  must  promise  not  to  tell  any  of  your 
friends  about  it."  Mr.  Fels  overheard  the  re- 
mark, and  looking  up  timidly  ventured,  "How 
could  you  ask  him  to  keep  from  his  friends 
the  one  thing  he  could  be  generous  enough  to 
share?" 

This  two-sided  nature  manifested  itself  in 
many  small  acts.  He  had  a  mischievous  boy's 
attitude  in  watching  a  dog  chase  a  cat,  and 
really  enjoyed  the  perilous  situation  of  the  cat. 
On  the  other  hand  when  as  happened  one 
evening  he  came  home  very  late  to  dinner  with 
no  excuse,  it  was  found  that  he  had  brought 
a  little  dog  to  a  friend  and  had  spent  an  hour 
in  the  east  side  of  London  finding  milk  and 
making  the  dog  comfortable  for  the  night. 
And  when  a  little  five  year  old  friend  was  or- 


256       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

dered  to  ride  on  account  of  illness,  he  started 
off  at  a  brisk  walk,  with  his  left  hand  in  his 
trousers  pocket  swinging  his  right,  to  the  home 
of  a  neighbor  he  didn't  know,  and  bought  a 
donkey.  How  did  he  know  there  was  a  donkey 
there  for  sale  ?  The  touching  part  of  this  story 
is  that  as  Joseph  Pels  came  across  the  fields 
leading  the  donkey,  followed  by  a  tiny  new- 
born one,  he  was  greeted  by  shouts  of  laughter 
and  asked,  "But  why  did  you  buy  two?"  With 
a  twinkle  of  his  brown  eyes  and  an  attempt  at 
raillery  but  with  a  seriousness  that  refused  to 
be  hidden  he  said,  "I  couldn't  separate  the 
mother  and  baby  and  so  I  bought  them  both." 
His  love  for  children  was  almost  a  passion 
and  in  his  heart  he  really  adopted  many  a  lad. 
For  the  son  of  an  Edinburgh  friend  he  had  a 
deep  affection  and  of  him  he  wrote,  "I  never 
before  wanted  to  steal  a  sixteen-year-old  boy 
until  this  one  came  along.  It  is  a  pleasure  to 
look  at  the  great,  stout,  manly  lad."  When 
another  friend  named  a  son  for  him  he  was 
deeply  touched.  And  while  his  love  for  the 
other  children  of  the  same  family  was  equally 
strong,  there  was  a  peculiar  quality  in  his  af- 


PERSONAL  257 

fection  for  this  child.  The  following  letter 
shows  how  deeply  affected  he  was  by  this  dem- 
onstration of  regard  for  him: 

London,  October  1,  1907. 
Dear  Joseph  B—   — : 

Here's  to  you,  my  jolly  little  chap,  and 
may  your  shadows  be  few  with  untold  quanti- 
ties of  sunshine  always  on  tap  for  at  least  a 
century.  You  are  here,  my  little  lad,  to  be 
rubbed  and  scrubbed  a  few  short  baby  years, 
to  be  petted  and  kissed  and  thrashed  and  all 
the  balance.  Then  you'll  be  chucked  on  to 
your  own  responsibilities  and  you'll  have  to 
stand  and  take  your  lickings  along  with  the 
pettings  of  a  more  or  less  careless  world.  .  .  . 

And,  dear  little  boy,  you've  got  my  name 
as  part  of  yours.  You  are  beginning  its  use. 
I've  got  a  considerable  distance  on  the  way  to 
finishing  with  it,  so  take  care  that  you  are 
good  to  Joseph  and  love  people.  Just  love 
'em  as  much  as  I  do. 

Your 

UNCLE  JOE. 

In  the  Fels  family  there  were  seven  chil- 
dren, Abraham,  Barbara,  Bettie,  Joseph, 
Maurice,  Samuel  and  Rosena.  With  his  two 
unmarried  sisters,  Barbara  and  Rosena,  and  his 


258       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

brother  Maurice,  Joseph  spent  a  great  deal  of 
his  time.  For  them  he  had  a  deep  affection 
and  when  in  Philadelphia  he  would  allow  noth- 
ing to  prevent  his  spending  his  Friday  even- 
ings with  them.  During  the  last  seven  years 
of  his  life  he  passed  the  months  of  his  stay  in 
America  in  the  home  of  his  friend  Earl  Barnes. 
There  he  felt  that  he  received  peculiar  stimula- 
tion to  thought  and  action  along  the  lines  he 
was  so  devotedly  following. 

Much  of  the  freedom  which  Mr.  Fels  en- 
joyed during  the  last  decade  of  his  life,  a  neces- 
sary condition  of  his  social  work,  was  due  to 
the  fact  that  his  brother  Samuel  carried  so  large 
a  share  of  the  business  responsibility.  As  each 
of  the  brothers  possessed  remarkable  inde- 
pendence of  character  there  was  necessarily  a 
divergence  of  views.  Notwithstanding  this, 
there  was  a  deep  groundwork  of  family  affec- 
tion, and  Mr.  Fels  was  always  conscious  of  the 
sterling  character  of  his  younger  brother.  In 
a  letter  dated  30th  May,  1909,  he  writes,  "We 
are  truly  glad  Sam  is  to  be  with  us  soon,  three 
weeks  from  now.  I  do  want  to  get  at  close 
quarters  with  Sam.  He  deserves  to  know  me 


PERSONAL  259 

as  I  am  and  I'll  be  glad  to  have  him  know  how 
greatly  I  respect  and  love  him." 

The  scope  and  multiplicity  of  his  activities 
which  included  the  management  of  more  than 
a  score  of  business  enterprises,  participation 
in,  and  often  the  responsible  direction  of,  many 
social  and  politicial  movements,  were  made 
possible  through  the  skill  and  tireless  energy 
of  Mr.  Walter  Coates,  who,  through  twenty 
years  of  public  and  private  work,  was  his  close 
companion  and  devoted  friend. 

For  one  to  think  that  Joseph  Fels  took  up 
the  work  of  shaping  the  social  mind  to  the  doc- 
trines of  Single  Tax  easily  and  lightly  is  a  mis- 
take. No  one  ever  put  more  labor,  more  heart- 
ache or  more  courage  into  preparing  himself 
for  propagandist  work.  Not  trained  to  speak 
and  coming  to  it  late  in  life,  he  found  it,  in- 
deed, uphill  work.  He  was  never  unconscious 
of  the  struggle  before  him  to  influence  opinion 
through  personal  appeal;  he  took  it  seriously 
but  with  a  humorous  sense  of  his  dependence 
upon  others  for  help.  In  writing  to  a  friend 
who  had  many  times  given  him  assistance,  he 
said,  "The  Lord  knows  how  I  wish  you  were 


260       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

here.  I  want  you,  'ma  honey,'  and  I  want  you 
bad;  the  wherefore  at  this  particular  juncture 
being  that  1  am  invited  to  talk  to  a  meeting 
about  farm  colonies  and  small  holdings  to  be 
convened  by  the  Lord  Provost  at  Glasgow  Fri- 
day of  next  week.  I  will  press  Mollie  and 
Walt  into  service,  though  they  are  just  com- 
mon garden  folk.  They  can't  help  me  to  lie 
with  the  same  smoothness  of  diction  as  you." 

One  night  at  the  dinner  table  a  lady,  a 
stranger  to  Mr.  Fels,  in  describing  someone, 
said,  "He  is  not  of  our  kind."  Mr.  Fels  had 
not  taken  part  in  the  conversation,  but  from 
the  other  end  of  a  long  table  he  quietly  in- 
quired, "Isn't  everyone  of  our  kind?"  It  is 
creditable  to  the  woman  that  this  gentle  rebuff 
made  her  his  friend.  Totally  unconscious  of 
convention,  he  cut  straight  through  to  the 
hearts  of  people.  One  cannot  treat  humanity 
as  he  did  without  often  causing  embarrassment 
to  those  who  are  near  and  dear.  If  he  con- 
versed with  the  butler  at  his  friend's  dinner 
table,  it  was  because  he  felt  intuitively  that  he 
was  doing  that  man  an  injustice  in  being  served 
by  him,  and  unconsciously  he  tried  to  undo  this 


PERSONAL  261 

injustice  by  talking  with  him  on  terms  of 
equality. 

When  he  heard  that  the  Crown  Prince  of 
Denmark  was  interested  in  land  reform  he  tried 
to  meet  him.  Owing  to  the  red  tape  of  the 
Chamberlain's  office  he  did  not  succeed  in  se- 
curing an  interview.  But  fate  threw  them  both 
on  the  same  ferry  boat  when  he  was  leaving  Co- 
penhagen. Seeing  the  Crown  Prince  on  the 
deck  surrounded  by  those  in  attendance,  Joseph 
Fels  does  not  think  of  himself  either  brazenly 
or  modestly,  but  thinking  only  of  the  work  to 
help  humanity,  and  knowing  that  the  Crown 
Prince  had  expressed  an  interest  in  that  work, 
he  leaves  his  own  group,  walks  straight  through 
the  royal  party  up  to  the  Crown  Prince  of  Den- 
mark, holds  out  his  hand  and  with  a  smile  so 
winning  that  no  one  could  see  it  and  be  un- 
moved, says,  "How  do  you  do,  Crown  Prince. 
I  am  Joseph  Fels,  interested  in  bringing  the 
land  and  the  people  together."  Amazement 
on  the  part  of  his  own  friends,  consternation 
and  surprise  on  the  part  of  the  Crown  Prince's 
suite  have  no  effect  on  either.  Man  meets 
man,  and  those  who  knew  Joseph  Fels  are  glad 


262       JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

that  the  Crown  Prince  rose  to  his  level,  held 
out  his  hand,  walked  away  with  him  for  a  two 
hours'  conversation  on  problems  bigger  than 
the  breaking  of  conventional  forms.  Joseph 
Fels'  democracy  was  big  enough  to  include  all 
human  beings  whether  kings  or  the  men  who  do 
the  menial  work  of  the  world. 

The  strength  of  Mr.  Fels'  personality  was 
his  naive  unconsciousness.  His  emotions  were 
those  of  a  child.  Criticism  hurt  him  only  when 
it  was  personal.  It  usually  stirred  the  fight 
in  him,  and  in  wordy  conflicts  he  was  rarely 
unsuccessful  because  he  was  fortified  by  an 
idea.  His  egoism  was  a  delight  to  those  who 
were  big  enough  to  understand  him;  it  was 
simply  the  honesty  of  the  child  nature  of  the 
man.  His  was  a  natural  reaction  to  the  forces 
with  which  the  conventional  world  brought  him 
in  conflict.  To  those  most  intimately  con- 
nected with  him  credit  must  be  given  for  af- 
fording free  play  to  this  striking  personality. 
The  little  mannerisms  in  speech,  whether 
merely  ungrammatical  or  verging  on  explosive 
abuse  were  by-products  of  the  man's  nature, 
and  were  not  tampered  with  by  those  who  prac- 


PERSONAL  263 

ticed  correct  grammar  and  elegant  diction. 
He  was  surrounded  by  such  friends  who  ap- 
preciated and  loved  his  individual  traits  as 
parts  of  a  big  personality.  Joseph  Fels  was 
not  the  kind  of  man  who  could  be  made  over 
into  the  polite,  urbane,  self-effacing  man  who 
operated  from  behind  breastworks.  He  was 
dynamic,  out  in  the  open,  fighting  with  every 
emotion  that  caught  him,  but  always  with  a 
heart  tender,  true  and  direct. 

This  account  of  Joseph  Fels  can  be  ap- 
propriately closed  by  a  description  of  his 
speech  at  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  written  by 
Miss  Margaret  McMillan.  It  was  a  dramatic 
moment  in  which  the  most  progressive  of  mod- 
erns stated  his  case  in  the  home  and  atmosphere 
of  age-long  conservatism. 

"He  arrived  in  a  motor  car — an  eager,  im- 
perious little  man  in  a  soft  felt  hat  and  rather 
worn  over-coat.  But  I  did  not  see  the  arrival 
and  caught  my  first  glimpse  of  him  at  the  end 
of  shadowy  cloisters,  and  in  a  soft  cool  twilight 
that  seemed  remote  indeed  from  the  outer  street 
in  the  heat  of  late  August  noon. 

"Dim  was  the  old  College,  and  peopled  with 


264      JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

shades.  Here  walked  the  dead;  luminous- 
eyed  men  who  wrote  saintly  hymns,  scholars 
and  statesmen  and  at  least  one  immortal  poet. 
The  winding  corridors  and  stairs,  the  doorways 
with  their  worn  steps,  and  the  long  aisles  under 
heavy  roofs  of  darkened  stone  were  haunted 
by  these.  And  what  stillness  everywhere,  a 
busy  kind  of  hush  as  if  the  air  was  full  of  mys- 
teries, veiled  life. 

"Suddenly  at  the  end  of  a  corridor  the 
small,  eager  figure  of  Joseph  Fels  appeared, 
his  coat  swinging  wide,  his  soft  hat  drawn  down 
over  his  face  at  a  impudent  tilt.  It  was  a  sur- 
prise. For  though  it  was  known  that  he  was 
coming  to  address  the  summer  students  of  the 
University  Extension  movement,  the  news 
never  reached  me.  Few  of  the  men  and  women 
now  busy  and  happy  with  their  tutors  knew 
anything  of  Joseph  Fels,  save  that  he  was  a 
rich  man  who  spent  his  money  freely  in  rather 
unusual  ways.  Later  they  would  gather  for 
tea  in  the  grounds  of  Balliol  College  and  hear 
what  he  had  to  say. 

"Still  Oxford  is  hospitable  in  its  way. 
Who  would  not  wish  to  do  the  honors  of  such 


PERSONAL  265 

a  place  as  this  world-famed  center  of  life  and 
learning.  A  young  undergraduate  chaper- 
oned the  guest.  We  walked  through  many 
halls,  went  into  the  vast  kitchens  of  Wolsey's 
College,  looked  down  Addison's  walk  and 
peered  into  stately  rooms  hung  with  portraits, 
and  smaller  chambers  where  the  great  ones  of 
the  world  had  lived.  As  the  sun  sank  low  in 
the  west  we  went  back  to  the  grounds  of  Bal- 
liol  College,  where  the  ghosts  gave  place  to 
the  work-a-day  life  of  the  world. 

"A  large  number  of  men  and  women  were 
gathered  from  every  part  of  England.  They 
represented  almost  every  class,  engineers,  wag- 
on-makers, factory  hands  from  Lancashire, 
'waivers'  from  Bradford,  arsenal  workers  and 
at  least  one  navvy.  Casual  laborers  too,  rail- 
way men,  clerks,  one  or  two  titled  women,  and 
mingled  with  these,  scholars,  tutors,  and  liter- 
ary stars.  A  brilliant  young  leader-writer  of 
the  Morning  Post,  an  Archbishop's  son  in  a 
'blazer'  and  one  dean  of  College.  A  very 
motley  gathering  certainly.  It  included  some 
of  the  best  of  England's  scholars  and  leaders 
of  thought.  There  was  also  a  sprinkling  of 


266      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

elementary  school-teachers.  A  clever,  robust- 
looking  Yorkshire  mill-girl  who  wrote  very 
good  essays  sat  in  the  foreground  with  a  group 
of  her  girl  friends,  talking  to  a  brilliant  young 
tutor. 

"The  little  American  was  the  focus  of  all 
attention  and  interest  for  a  moment  as  he  came 
in,  his  face  pale,  with  the  strange  pallor  of  the 
Eastern.  His  manner  was  nervous,  though 
rather  jocular,  for  he  was  not  at  all  unconsci- 
ous of  the  elements  of  power  as  well  as  pres- 
tige in  the  men  and  women  before  him,  as  well 
as  of  the  historic  site.  As  he  took  off  his  hat 
he  showed  a  typically  Jewish  head,  wide  and 
rounded.  Time  and  again  that  figure  has  ap- 
peared in  gatherings  at  critical  moments. 
Modern?  No.  He  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
big  crowd  scattered  around  the  lawn  and  on 
the  slopes,  under  the  dark  walls,  the  type  of 
the  wandering  race  that  has  suffered  in  many 
lands  ere  there  was  any  thought  of  Balliol  Col- 
lege, and  had  heard  the  law  given  on  Sinai. 

"Everyone  expected  him  to  be  modern, 
however.  The  chairman  introduced  him 
briefly  as  an  American,  a  business  man  who 


PERSONAL  267 

lived  in  England  during  part  of  every  year, 
and  announced  his  subject  (though  everyone 
knew  it  and  smiled  a  little  over  it)  as  'The 
Land.'  'You're  quite  right  there,'  said  Mr. 
Fels,  'I've  only  one  subject,  I've  only  one  lec- 
ture. The  Gospel  isn't  long,  it's  short.  But 
you  can  say  it  over  a  great  many  times  with- 
out getting  to  the  end  of  it.  Yes,  I'm  going 
to  talk  to  you  about  the  land — this  earth  you're 
standing  on.  Who  does  it  belong  to?  Who 
made  it?  Who's  got  a  right  to  it?  That's 
what  I  am  going  to  talk  about  here,  that's  what 
I  am  talking  about  all  the  time.' 

"The  whole  company  looked  a  little  bored, 
though  amused.  The  smart  factory  girl 
smiled,  becoming  conscious  of  the  speaker's 
deficiencies,  his  accent  and  his  unceremonious 
way  of  speaking.  The  students  in  the  Eco- 
nomics classes  (there  were  a  great  many  of 
them)  fresh  from  their  books  brightened  for  a 
moment  and  then  grew  dull.  A  chill  wind 
went  round  the  whole  assembly  and  not  even 
the  courteous  intent  look  on  the  Balliol  men's 
faces  tempered  it  in  the  least.  On  the  con- 
trary the  careful  politeness  emphasized  the 


268      JOSEPH  PELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

chill.  A  great  many  young  students  thought 
they  knew  what  their  teachers  were  thinking, 
and  threw  them  half -apologetic  and  deferential 
glances.  The  Jew,  under  his  well-defined  sur- 
face manners,  was  perfectly  conscious  of  all 
this  and  it  angered  him.  He  began  to  speak 
rapidly,  with  new  emphasis.  He  also  used 
the  unscholarly  word  'damn.'  The  Yorkshire 
girl,  fresh  from  studies  that  rendered  her  a  lit- 
tle intolerant,  could  hardly  conceal  her  indig- 
nation. Then  suddenly  the  speaker,  fighting 
thus  for  a  moment  with  his  audience,  appeared 
to  transfer  his  scene  of  operations.  It  was  as 
if  a  rider  dragged  at  his  horse's  heels  vaulted 
into  the  saddle.  He  got  hold  of  the  reins  of 
his  own  anger,  his  own  ruffled  temper.  He 
vaulted  into  a  new  attitude  and  found  his  place. 
All  was  shown  somehow  at  once  in  his  face,  in 
his  voice,  which  lost  its  fretted  tones,  and  very 
soon,  in  his  speech.  'Learning  itself — I  make 
claim  to  none  and  am  an  ignorant  man  by  com- 
parison with  many  of  you — must  flourish  best 
at  last  on  a  soil  that  is  free  from  evil  under- 
growths.  But  are  these  conditions  secured 
here  or  even  in  new  countries  ?  You  know  very 


PERSONAL  269 

well  that  the  poor  come  to  these  colleges  only 
by  reason  of  an  agitation  raised  in  very  modern 
days,  and  even  now  by  the  will  of  those  who 
have  secured  every  privilege  by  the  initial  priv- 
ilege of  land-owning.  Below  every  movement 
that  calls  itself  progressive  but  puts  off  the 
consideration  of  the  evil  of  private  monopoly 
in  land  values,  there  is  a  moral  evil  that  poisons 
everything.  To  postpone  the  removal  of  this 
is  to  postpone  every  other  reform  or  vitiate  it. 
Yes,  this  is  what  I  have  come  here  to  say.'  He 
paused  for  a  moment,  and  a  look  of  infinite 
gentleness,  sympathy  and  humility  came  to  his 
face. 

"The  audience  was  graver  now  though  a 
movement  of  resentment  flowed  into  it. 

"Now  the  voice  gathered  strength,  but  it 
was  a  new  kind  of  strength.  Ever  more  de- 
tached, it  seemed  yet  nearer  and  more  intimate. 
It  took  no  account  of  the  differences  of  those 
before  him,  still  less  of  their  feeling  or  rela- 
tion to  him.  Where  now,  was  the  rich  man, 
the  millionaire?  Through  the  calm,  sun- 
bathed space  between  the  college  walls,  and 
over  the  green  shaven  mound,  it  rose  and  fell — 


270      JOSEPH  FELS,  HIS  LIFE-WORK 

the  Voice  as  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness. 
With  passionate  faith,  in  perfect  self -surrender, 
in  quiet  acceptance  of  all  labor  and  loss  and  all 
suffering,  and  with  a  hope  that  bore  up  the  soul 
to  fair  and  cloudless  heights,  it  beat  against 
every  heart  as  at  a  heavy  door.  And  when  the 
speaker  ended  at  last, — falling  back  in  his  role 
of  diffident,  half -jocular  millionaire  philan- 
thropist, as  suddenly  as  a  bird  falls  into  its  nest 
on  the  earth,  there  was  deep  silence  for  a  mo- 
ment, a  silence  far  more  charged  with  meaning 
than  was  the  so-called  debate  that  followed. 
Looking  spent,  and  very  white  and  small  he 
sat  down. 

"Did  one  hear  that  Voice  again?  Yes,  in- 
deed, though  not  on  that  day  nor  for  a  few 
months  later.  In  the  evening,  he  was,  I  re- 
member, a  little  subdued,  and  had  nothing  to 
say  about  the  University,  nothing  about  his 
critics  and  antagonists  in  the  debate. 

"But  I  did  hear  the  Voice  again.  It  was 
after  the  news  came  of  his  death  in  Philadel- 
phia. They  say  he  was  carried  into  a  great 
hall  and  lay  in  the  midst  of  a  great  multitude. 
Many  wept,  and  they  praised  him.  Love 


PERSONAL  871 

was  round  him  in  death  like  a  sun-lit  sea 
about  a  storm-rent  battleship.  Silent  he  lay, 
yet  not  silent.  Again  we  saw  the  dim  cloisters, 
the  smooth  lawn  of  Balliol,  and  the  modern 
students  of  many  social  orders.  And  his  words 
rang  out  now,  but  like  a  strain  of  music. 
Strong  words  and  brave,  words  that  will  not 
die,  nor  be  forgotten.  For  they  tell  of  that 
which  abides  amid  all  passing  shadows,  of 
something  that  does  not  yield  to  doubt  or  fear, 
or  earthly  powers,  and  which  however  baffled 
or  delayed  cannot  fail  at  last." 


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